Between Realities - A Pern Adventure
by Dragonsight Elli
Summary: Facing an unusual crisis, residents of a different Pern reality discover that their dragons possess the power of quantum ergokinesis, the ability to move trans-dimensionally. They use that gift to enlist the aid of a second Pern reality to save their world from the life-threatening impact of a cometary fragment. "Between Realities"! Hope you enjoy it!


Between Realities – A Pern Adventure

By Elli Swanson and Dana Sterling.

Chapter 1 - Moreta's Return

Elli / PP 35-6-3.

"Shells, what's that keening?" Menolly cried as "The Ballad of Moreta's Ride" came to a close.

I had the privilege of being at the Harper Hall during Threadfall. I went there because Rollith was rising. I'd really wanted to stay, because Tiffany was having communication problems with F'rangle, so I was curious to see whether he would remain her weyrmate or if D'nag would get off his high horse and let Claranth fly a queen.

Not to offend F'rangle, but I hoped fervently that the latter happened. I loved F'rangle like a brother, but he was not suited to my twinny. What did they really have in common? Only that Tiffany was blind and relied on her dragon's sight, whereas Colinath was blind and relied on his rider's sight. F'rangle was much younger than Tiffany, and he was very immature for his age. He had no sense of responsibility, no sense of fatherhood toward his children. If it weren't for Tiffany, the children would have been fostered out almost the minute they were born. F'rangle had initially accepted the twins as his own, even though they were V'lex's, but when he learned that a father must take responsibility for his charges, he quickly lost interest.

Some nights I would hear her crying herself to sleep, but I dared not attract attention to it in case F'rangle found out. He was much more suited to a younger rider who didn't much care about raising her own children.

A'dan and M'chael wondered every day whether their father loved them, as we did not tell them that V'lex was their true father, and that he hadn't wanted them ever since the dolphins had diagnosed Tiffany's pregnancy.

However, as I rode a queen, I couldn't stay for the outcome. The outcome would have been much worse if I had stayed. I tried to go to Igen, but Raeana texted me that Elsie's queen was rising, and could she come to Honshu to visit us?

"Nope, Rollith's rising," I texted back. "Want to go to the Harper Hall and visit Sebell and Menolly?"

"Yes, let's go!" she replied.

We had no clue that Thread would fall almost as soon as we got there, but that was all to the good. We were in for a real treat. Every time Thread fell on the Harper Hall, all the harpers in residence — apprentices, journeymen, and masters alike, would gather in the dining room and sing and play. They sang and played all the dragon songs and of the heroic deeds done by dragons and riders. We were just finishing "Moreta's Ride", when I, too, became aware of the keening.

"It's Chlorith," I cried, wishing I could go out to her and comfort her. "She must be upset because we can't fight Thread. We flew straight here because I'm pregnant again. Yeah, I can't believe it either! I'm 50 years old! I should be going through menopause, not having another baby!"

"Chlorith really likes music, doesn't she?" asked Menolly.

"Yes, she does, but usually only sad songs make her keen. Well, I guess this is a sad song, isn't it?"

I reached out to her with a silent, "Chlori, what is it?"

_The song_, my heart moaned. _She was lost 'between' because the dragon she rode was too old. She never saw the clutch hatch. She never saw Oklina Impress the queen. She never saw the end of the Plague. She never knew how much she meant to all of us now._

"You're not planning on going back in time 800 Turns to rescue her?" I asked rhetorically. "Don't get any ideas! We'd have to go to the Yokohama and borrow space suits. I really don't want to do that right now! I want to enjoy the music. Plus, she wouldn't be with her dragon, and Holth wouldn't be with her rider. Moreta couldn't ride Orlith because she was broody."

_I could bring Orlith later,_ Chlorith whined.

"What about Leri?" I asked. "She didn't go _between_. The records say she died on the day of the Hatching. She couldn't live without her dragon at that age."

_That doesn't mean we can't rescue Moreta and then come back for Orlith the day of the hatching, _Chlorith said belligerently.

"Not a chance, Chlori," I said severely. "Not… a… chance!"

"What's going on?" asked Menolly.

It was then I realized that I had said the last bit aloud. I was so disgusted with her plan that I had inadvertently spoken.

"She wants to rescue Moreta," I groaned in disgust. "She doesn't seem to realize the risk she'd be taking with us. I'm not willing to take that risk. I'm fucking pregnant, remember? That kind of jump _between_ would kill the twins!"

"Perhaps Chlorith doesn't remember that," Menolly gently offered.

"She damn well better!" I cried passionately. "I love my dragon, but for the sake of the First Egg, you'd think she'd think a little before she went ahead and took such an unnecessary risk. If I weren't pregnant, I might consider it, but there's no way in hell I'd risk my children. G'narish would never forgive me, and I'd never forgive myself for that matter! No way, Jose. No sir-ee-bob!"

"Besides, if Lessa heard about such an expedition, she would explode!" Menolly smiles back. "She almost died going back 400 Turns for the Oldtimers. Do you really think she'd allow anyone to go back 800 Turns?

"She says we can borrow space suits, but there's no life support left on the Yoko," I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't know how to power it up. Plus, there's still the minor little problem of my pregnancy! I am not aborting those babies!"

_If I have to go alone, I certainly will!_ Chlorith cries. _ I have to talk to her. I need to tell her what she means to all of us. Her sacrifice has awarded her a place in history. Even my kind reveres her._

"But, Chlorith, it wouldn't be a sacrifice if she were saved, would it?" I cried in exasperation. "Not everybody can be saved. D'nag was one thing. Aureath only had to go back four Turns to save him. We're talking 800 Turns here. Out of the question. I'm not going! I'm not becoming a sacrifice so that you can save another."

_Then I'll go by myself_, Chlorith declared. _I wouldn't go if I thought either of us would die. It'll take less than 15 minutes 'between', and a space suit would most definitely serve us well in that time._

"I am pregnant!" I roared. "I might survive, but my babies most certainly will not!"

_Have you ever tried going 'between' in a space suit while pregnant?_ Chlorith demanded.

"Of course not!" I shouted. "I wouldn't take that risk if it cost you your life!"

"Whoa, Elli, that's a bit harsh!" Menolly cried, suddenly concerned. "If it meant your dragon's life, what would you do? Think about it."

"I won't sacrifice one for another!" I proclaimed. "I'd try to keep both alive!"

"That's what we'd all want," Menolly said, "but if there were a choice between one and the other?"

I burst into tears.

"I c-c-couldn't make that choice!" I sobbed. "I love both of them equally. I don't have a telepathic bond with my children, but they're still important to me. I couldn't watch them die to save my dragon, nor could I watch my dragon die to save my children. That's like making me sacrifice one child for another. It just doesn't work. Oh shards, where is she?"

I had lost contact with Chlorith in the middle of my frenzied weeping. Menolly had taken me out into the serving alcove so that we wouldn't disturb the other musicians as they started yet another heroic ballad.

"It would've been better if she'd tried to save Wirenth," I sob, trying to wipe away the tears. "That was a senseless tragedy, not a sacrifice, and it happened in our Pass."

"She's not on the heights," Menolly reported.

"I didn't think she would be with Thread falling, but I can't imagine where a non-fighting dragon would go during Threadfall when they're here at the Harper Hall." I said, wiping away my tears.

My heart began to race despite my calm demeanor. If Chlorith wasn't on the heights, had she joined a fighting wing? Impossible. She couldn't chew firestone, and she had no one to operate a flamethrower. Besides, we didn't bring one. She was due to rise any day now, so of course she'd be proddy. She was as moody as any other queen who was on the verge of mating. I bet even Ramoth wasn't as moody as Chlorith when it came to mating. What if she was rising now?

"Is she around the stables?" I asked Menolly. "She could be rising."

"Raeana's gone, too," Menolly responded.

"Is Miroirth still here?"

"No," Menolly replied. "Perhaps Rollith has mated and it's safe for you to go back home."

"No," I said emphatically. "She'd've warned me."

I reached out to her with my mind, but I couldn't find her. That meant only one thing. I reached out to Miroirth, but I couldn't find her, either.

"Menolly, they've timed it somewhen."

My worst fears were confirmed. Chlorith had timed it 800 odd Turns to rescue Lady Moreta without me! I exploded into tears again. I was sure Chlorith was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it! If I'd have gone with her, I would have been able to die alongside her, and I wouldn't have to be a dragonless rider like Brekke and Lytol.

Menolly took me in her arms. The Threadfall klaxon rang, signaling the end of the Fall. I was stranded. Not only had I lost my dragon, but I had also lost my daughter and her dragon as well. I couldn't bear it. I wanted to text G'narish to get his ass over here right away, but I wasn't sure how he'd handle the ground crews searching out thread burrows. He was still traumatized by Threadfall even though he knew that it had not killed D'nag. He was still on death's door, and we had no idea how long he'd survive. G'narish was on constant alert in case D'nag were to die. If that was going to happen, he wanted him to die in his arms, the same way I wanted Tiffany to die in my arms. But G'narish needed to know, I thought rationally. He would be very upset if there were a crisis going on that he wasn't a part of. He was a former weyrleader for Faranth's sake. He needed to know.

I pulled away from Menolly so I could get my Bluetooth keyboard out of my fanny pack. I quickly texted G'narish that we had a crisis at the Harper Hall and to come immediately.

"If you have to, time it!" I texted, then sent the message.

With trembling hands, I put the keyboard away, then sank back into Menolly's arms. That's where G'narish found me.

"I timed it five minutes before you sent the text," he said. "Where's Chlorith?"

I gave him the rundown.

"She went back in time 800 Turns without her rider?!" G'narish exclaimed.

"I think Miroirth and Raeana went with her," Menolly said, as I was too upset to say anything more.

Suddenly, I got a light telepathic touch, which vanished seconds later. My breath caught, but then I let it out in a violent sob.

"I felt it, too." G'narish consoled me. "It'll come back.

"Chlorith!" I screamed, but there was no answer.

It had been like a shorted wire working for just a second before it had been cut out again.

"You felt that touch, Elli," Menolly said soothingly. "That means they're alright. She's most likely mad at you. Is she proddy?"

"Yes," I sobbed. "Any time Rollith rises, she rises the next day or so."

"A dragon will never rise during Threadfall," G'narish assured me. "You were experiencing Threadfall here until a few minutes ago."

Just then, the sound of dragon wings filled the air as three queens landed, one riderless.

"Chlorith Swanson!" G'narish screamed at the top of his lungs.

I had never given my dragon a last name before, but it fit, as Swanson is my last name.

"How dare you?" G'narish was flaming from the mouth, laser beams coming out of his eyes. "How dare you risk your life like that, especially without your rider! How dare you risk your daughter's life just because you wanted to do this? You could've left Elli dragonless! Do you have any idea what it would've been like for her to be dragonless? Do you have any idea what she went through with the three of you gone? She couldn't reach you at all! When a rider can't reach her dragon, she's desolate. It's as though she's already lost you! How mother fucking dare you!"

"You just used a phrase from Earth," Raeana meekly observed.

"I don't give a rat's ass!" G'narish screamed. "And you, Raeana, going with her? You could've stayed behind to console your mother!"

"Someone had to talk to her," Raeana said, pointing to the weak, space-suited woman who was all but lying across her equally weak dragon. "We had to introduce her to Pern in the 9th Pass. Otherwise, she wouldn't know where she was going!"

For once, I was glad Raeana was standing up for herself, but I agreed wholeheartedly with G'narish.

"I think we should get her back to Honshu," Menolly suggested. "She could recuperate better in the sun."

"Why not leave her at the Healer Hall where Oldive could minister to her?" G'narish calmed down slightly as he saw the woman and her dragon for the first time.

"This is Moreta, Daddy," Raeana said in introduction. "We went forward a few days to retrieve Orlith."

"How did you manage that without anyone seeing Moreta?" asked Menolly.

"We called her from _between_ when they thought she suicided. She joined us there."

"How can you call anyone from _between_?" G'narish demanded, skepticism all over his face. "No one can communicate from _between_."

"Chlorith and Miroirth did," Raeana said. "It was easy. You can communicate with your dragon during a long jump _between_. Same principle."

"Perhaps we should get her to Cove Hold instead," I suggested, sniffling back some of the tears. "Orlith could use Tiroth's old weyr, and we could introduce her to Lytol. He's the only remaining survivor of the original Cove Hold settlement, and he's Lord Holder there now. It's become somewhat of the Southern Continent's version of a Healer Hall. She'd be right at home there. She's unconscious, I presume, or dying of shock after such a long jump. How did you get her into a space suit?"

"We pushed her to the Southern Continent," Raeana replied. "Then we suited her up for the long journey. We had to leave Holth behind, because Leri stayed with Orlith until the clutch Hatched, and then they both died on the same day. She didn't go _between_ with Orlith."

"I'll go with you, so I can explain more of this to Lytol," offered Menolly.

"I'll lead," I said. "It's my dragon that committed this transgression after all, so I should be the one to explain. You're still not off the hook for this, Chlorith!" I added as I mounted her.

"Here's a space suit for you, Elli," said Raeana. "Let's see if a space suit will prevent abortion."

"It's the cold that kills!" I cried in a duh voice.

"It's the lack of oxygen, silly." G'narish replied.

"I hope you have the right image, Elli," Menolly worried.

"Cove Hold, Menolly. I got it."

Then, we went _between_. The jump lasted a lot longer than usual.

_I am here_, I heard four dragons say in concert.

I was almost surprised when we came out of the open.

"This doesn't look right." was G'narish's first comment as we landed.

"Right cove," Menolly said, glancing about. "But the wrong Hold."

"What are you babbling about?" I demanded, trying to shut them up. "It's Cove Hold, isn't it?"

"I think we timed it to the future," G'narish whispered in total awe. "I didn't think we could do that!"

"Uh-oh." I mumbled, nervously taking in my surroundings.

This wasn't the first time I had screwed up an image.

Chapter 2 – Prescient Reality (Dana's P.O.V.)

Tarnaa and I are standing on the sands in front of Robinton's former Cove Hold home, Goldie perched on my shoulder, her tail lovingly wound around my neck. The sun is high in the sky, a gentle breeze is blowing, the waves lapping at the shore.

Suddenly, we three look up in time to see two queens emerge from _between_, settling gently to the beach nearby. That's when I take in the strangeness of the riders' appearances. Why are they wearing spacesuits? Even more curious, one of the riders has something dangling from her dragon's harness… a long, thin pole, nearly two meters long… and entirely white. It was familiar, somehow; a distant, almost forgotten memory.

Well, I'd have to worry about it later. The two besuited riders dismounted. The one with the thin white pole retrieved the strange artifact before sliding down her dragon's side, then the two walked resolutely up to us.

"Welcome to Robinton Cove," I call out, waving a greeting, Tarnaa and Goldie adding their own hello.

The stranger with the white pole reaches up to remove her helmet.

"I am Elli," she introduces herself, tucking her helmet under her arm, "rider of gold Chlorith." Gesturing to the other suited stranger who was removing her own helmet, she adds, "This is my daughter, Raeana, rider of gold Miroirth. We need your help."

One look at Elli's face, and that long forgotten memory slammed jarringly into focus. That pole! It was a cane! A cane for…

"You're blind!" I gasped.

That startling vision brought me instantly awake, jerking bolt upright in bed, sweating nervously as I glanced frantically about.

This was Master Robinton's old bedroom. Nearly every citizen of Pern had graciously insisted that I move into his old home. I was, after all, the new Lady Holder of Robinton Cove, thanks to his gracious last will and testament. It had been quite a while since I had last experienced one of my prescient visions, but I knew better than to dismiss this latest one as just a dream.

_Are you alright?_ Tarnaa rumbled from just outside, her one massive eye peering in the nearby window.

"Yes, my heart," I assured her, hopping out of bed to give her eye ridge a scratch.

_You seem troubled._

"Another of my dreams, love," I sighed, drawing a few deep breaths to slow my wildly pounding heart.

_Danger?_

"I don't know," I admitted with a shrug. "It was very confusing."

_You are my rider,_ Tarnaa thrummed, her eyes shading to a slowly whirling purple. _We overcame the Exiles crisis. We will find a way to deal with this, too._

Goldie nuzzled my cheek, purring gently. She wasn't worried. Chuckling to myself, I gave Tarnaa a final pat on the head before I hurried off to shower and get breakfast.

Then, it was off to the teaching hospital to begin the latest of my ever-busier days as the Craftmaster of Surgery. We even had a few of the former Exiles as patients now, injured on their island homes for one reason or another. Kara kept up a check on them. It made sense since she was Weyrwoman now of the Eastern Islands Weyr.

"Dana? Got a sec?" she asked, tapping on the doorframe of my open office door.

"What's up?" I ask, Goldie trilling a greeting from her resting place atop one of my filing cabinets.

"Not sure," she admitted, taking a seat nearby. "Got a report from one of the island holders who was recuperating here."

"Go on," I said, setting the material I was reading aside.

"You remember Gorith?"

"The grumpy one from your home village," I chuckled, recalling.

Kara nodded, smiling. "He said he was out walking the beaches down near Master Robinton's old place when he saw two queens appear briefly before disappearing."

I leaned forward in my seat. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, that's the odd part," Kara muttered, shaking her head. "Gorith said the two riders were wearing strange outfits."

I felt the hairs starting to stand up on the back of my neck.

"What sort of outfits?" I asked, my heart starting to race.

"Weird, he said," Kara reported. "Said they looked a lot like those space suits you and Lord Jaxom wore when you went up to the colony ships to reactivate the solar arrays."

Hearing that, my heart skipped several nervous beats. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, they called out to each other," Kara replied, shrugging. "Gorith seems to think they told each other 'This isn't the right place!'. Then the one rider, said, 'Chlorith, take us home!'."

My heart thudded so hard in my chest, I thought it might break a rib.

"And the other one said, 'Miroirth, follow her!' before they both vanished," Kara went on. Looking straight at me, she asked, "What does it mean? Who are Chlorith and Miroirth? I don't remember any queens by that name."

That's when Kara noticed the paleness of my face and the sweat trickling down it. "Shards, Dana, what's wrong?"

Taking a moment to draw a deep breath, I slowly let it out, saying, "This morning I had a dream."

"A dream?" Kara wondered… and then gasped. "A vision?!"

I nodded. "Two queens and riders landed out in front of Robinton's old home and came up to me, Tarnaa, and Goldie. They introduced themselves as Elli and Raeana, their queens… Chlorith and Miroirth!"

"By the First Egg!" Kara hissed; her eyes positively bugged out.

"The one called Elli said they needed our help," I went on, slowly rising to pace back and forth.

"Our help? How?" Kara spluttered, clearly disbelieving.

"They didn't say," I replied, pausing to look straight at Kara. "But the one called Elli… is blind!"

"What?!" Kara gasped. "How is that possible? How can someone who is blind ride a dragon?"

"I've a feeling we'll be finding out," I whispered, peering out the window, "and soon!"

Chapter 3 - A Strange New Ability (Elli's P.O.V.)

G'narish was awed by what he had seen in the future, but I was scared out of my wits. This wasn't the first time I'd made a mistake sending an image, and I was both frightened and humiliated every time I did it. I wasn't a good traveler under the best circumstances… one of the many reasons I had tried to refuse Chlorith's Impression of me. But her broken heart had made me change my mind.

I relied on her to memorize images, probably the reason why she had such a good memory. It was one of the many adaptations she, Rollith, and Aureath had had to make to accommodate mine, Tiffany's, and Ariana's blindness.

Ariana had had sight before the fire-head, so her images were a bit clearer, but she had made the mistake of timing it to when she'd had sight because the images were that old.

Tiffany had always been a better mobility student than me, so she was able to adapt more to her dragon's sight than I was. Though the images they sent us were tactile, because we had never seen before in our lives, we were still confused from time to time by what we perceived. I had led the quartet to Cove Hold because it had been my Chlorith who had gone on such a risky adventure. At least I'd gotten the image right when we landed back at Honshu.

"That building on Cove Hold," Raeana said finally, after a long silence; "It almost looked like a hospital. I barely remember what a hospital looks like, but that building jogged my memory."

"Why would there be a hospital at Cove Hold?" I demanded. "That's Robinton's shrine. No one should invade the sanctity of Cove Hold. Lytol is Lord Holder, and he only lets a select few come see it."

"I want to see that building again," Raeana spoke, her voice revealing her excitement. "If it really is a hospital, I could be a nurse there. I always wanted to be a nurse. Not only that, but D'nag is getting worse by the second. If we could take him and Moreta back to that hospital, they could both recover."

"What about their dragons?" I asked.

"They'd recover, too," a small voice interrupted… Ariana. "Wear your space suit, Mama. That protected the babies."

"Did we travel into the future?"

I didn't know why I was asking a nine-year-old girl that question, but somehow, I knew she had the answer.

"The past," she said reverently. "You traveled into an alternate reality."

"How can dragons travel into an alternate reality?" I demanded. "True, I did imagine Moreta in a hospital because I felt that was where she needed to be, but I didn't know Pern even had a working hospital. I had Chlorith's tactile image of Cove Hold in my head, but I was also bemoaning the fact that Pern's healing facilities were more primitive than hell's ass."

"We haven't taken off our space suits yet," Raeana chimed in, her excitement growing. "Let's go back and explore."

"We'll have to return to the Yoko and get a space suit for D'nag." I sighed, more than a little nervous about what we were about to do. "You didn't have an extra on you when you went for Orlith and Moreta."

"Don't assume," Raeana cut in. "We brought a couple extras in case we needed to go _between_ and catch Chlorith before she died. I didn't want to go on the expedition, either, but something told me that if I didn't, you might lose your dragon."

"You have prescience, too?" I groaned.

"No, just a hunch," Raeana chuckled, smiling gently down at Ariana. "I may be able to speak to any dragon, but I don't have clairvoyance like my little sister."

"I want to go, too!" Ariana was almost whining when she said it.

"You sound like your twin," I said warningly. "Actually, I'm surprised she doesn't have the sight, too."

"She does," Ari replies. "It just hasn't shown up, yet. You need a dramatic event to happen for your sight to show up. I had the fire-head. She had it too, but not as bad as me. She didn't lose her sight like I did. When I lost my sight, I gained _the_ sight."

"Traumatic, dear, not dramatic," I corrected her, sighing as I did.

She might have spoken like an adult most times, but when it came to confusing words like "drama" and "trauma", she still had great difficulty.

"Ah, but trauma causes drama," Raeana said wisely, grinning down at her sister.

"And, don't worry," Raeana said gently. "I brought another space suit for you, as well. I thought you and your sister might want to explore this "alternate reality" you say we went to."

"Chlorith, do you remember the image?" I asked, remounting her.

_Yes, I do,_ she replied. _That was a hospital we saw. I remember pictures of them in the AIVAS files. I am concerned for D'nag, though. I am uncertain whether he should go 'between'._

"It's not that long of a jump," I told her. "Your jump to rescue Moreta was much longer. We couldn't have gone that far in time. We might even have remained in this Turn."

_We'll ask when we get there_, said my dragon. _She kind of looked like a dragon herself. I saw her through the hospital window. She is beautiful, and she has a queen like me, and she has a queen fire-lizard._

"Elizabeth, Marie-Antoinette?" I called.

The two queens raced each other to me, each landing on one of my shoulders.

"Would you like to come along?" I asked.

They chirped happily in reply, even as G'narish carried D'nag to his dragon and Raeana supported Moreta back to Orlith.

"Let's go, my little Chlorisa!" I called, barely able to wait for the newest adventure of my life.

_For the umpteenth time, my name is Chlorith…_ _and, yes, let us go!_"

Chapter 4 – One Hell Of A Jump 'Between' (Dana's P.O.V.)

"Dana?"

No response.

"Dana!" Kara nearly shouted, giving my arm a shake.

"Oh! Sorry!" I apologized, shaking my head vigorously.

"This has to do with your vision, doesn't it?"

I nodded. "When did Gorith say he saw the queens?"

"About a sevenday ago," Kara replied. "Why?"

"Right around the time I felt that strange contact," I explained, reaching over to give Goldie's eye ridge a scratch. "We had so many riders in and out of here that day, I just assumed someone had mis-timed it. But now…"

"What're you going to do?" Kara wondered, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"My job," I resolutely declared, straightening my shoulders. "If they need healers, then I'll do my utmost to assist them."

"You don't even know what they want yet!" Kara protested; her face lined with worry.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," I chuckled, laying my own hand on her shoulder.

"Eastern Island Weyr is at your disposal," Kara offered, nodding.

"Never doubted it, my friend!" I replied, giving her hand a squeeze.

I didn't have long to wait. Just a pair of sevendays after the prescient vision, as I was eating lunch back at my home, I felt that strange contact once more.

_Tarnaa?_

_ I sense it, too,_ she informed me, _but they are not here, yet._

Drawing a deep breath to help me still my thoughts, I reached out to the strange dragon. _Chlorith?_

What I received back could only be called a dragon gasp. _We are still 'between'! How can you hear me? Elli! She can hear me!_

_Chlorith, can you see the image I'm sending?_ I asked as I broadcast an image of the beach in front of my home.

_Yes, _Elli's dragon replied_. Even Elizabeth and Marie-Antoinette can follow it._

_ Can you also see this image?_ I went on, broadcasting a view of a broad shaded area discreetly behind the house, out of view of any casual viewers.

_You and Miroirth bring your riders to the beach,_ I instructed. _I'll meet you there. Have the others traveling with you land in that clearing. Do you understand?_

_Why separately? My rider is worried._

_For your own safety,_ I replied. _Please, Chlorith._

_We come!_

_I'll meet you there!_ I responded, racing out of the house.

Tarnaa, Goldie, and I just reached the beach in time to see the two queens emerge from _between_, their two riders wearing spacesuits, just as the vision predicted. As the queens were backwinging to a landing nearby, I stole a quick glance behind me, heaving an enormous sigh of relief at the sight of two bronzes and a pair of queens coming to rest in the secluded clearing behind the house.

"Welcome to Robinton Cove!" I called out as the two queen riders dismounted, Goldie and Tarnaa adding their own greetings.

The space-suited queen riders approached, the one with the cane removing her helmet before speaking to me.

"I am Elli," she introduces herself, tucking her helmet under her arm, "rider of gold Chlorith." Gesturing to the other suited stranger who was removing her own helmet, she adds, "This is my daughter, Raeana, rider of gold Miroirth. We need your help."

"Welcome, gold riders," I responded, shaking their hands. "How may I serve you?"

"We saw the hospital," Elli remarked.

"On your first visit," I chuckled, nodding.

"Our friends need help, badly," Chlorith's rider explained, pointing her cane toward the clearing. "Can you help them?"

"Won't know till I have a look," I responded, turning toward the clearing. Offering Elli my hand, I asked, "Need help?"

She shook her head, grinning at me. "I see with my dragon's eyes. I'll be fine."

"Interesting!" I remarked, grinning. "I was wondering about that part of my vision."

"Vision?!" Elli gasped. "You're prescient?!"

"We can discuss this all later," I urged. "Right now, we need to see to your companions."

I ran… so did Elli, proving her assertion that she could see with her dragonsight. But when we reached the other dragons, I skidded to a sudden stop.

"Gyarmath?!" I gasped, recognizing the Igen dragon. "Is G'narish…"

"Here," he responded, stepping out from behind his dragon. "I'm fine, but my brother, D'nag, and his dragon have been badly Scored."

As I looked closer, this G'narish seemed much older than the one I knew. So did his dragon. The conclusion was inescapable.

"Why did you time it? What could you possibly gain coming back to the past?"

_This is not the Gyarmath that we know,_ Tarnaa rumbled, whuffling the bronze up and down.

"What're you talking about?" I wondered aloud.

_This is not our Gyarmath._

"Not our…" I spluttered, glancing about. Suddenly, I gasped, my eyes as big as saucers. "By the First Egg!"

I whirled, facing G'narish. "Any dizziness? Vertigo?"

"You mean, as though I timed-it too close?"

He added a negative shake of his head.

"By the Fire Falls of Firlea!" I hissed, my hands and knees shaking as I stared at those gathered around me. "I remember the lesson, but I never thought…"

"What lesson?" Elli's daughter, Raeana, wondered.

"From my Academy days," I hissed, the shock of what I was seeing nearly stealing away my voice. "During our psionics screenings. The instructors called it quantum ergokinesis."

"What the hell is that?" Elli spluttered.

"It refers to the ability to travel to parallel universes," I whispered, nearly overwhelmed by this unexpected development. Turning to G'narish, I added, "That's why you don't feel the dizziness or vertigo being this close to your other self. You're not from this timeline… not from this reality… but from an alternate one!"

"Holy shit!" Elli exclaimed. Whirling to her dragon, she added, "Chlorith, what did you do?"

_Just as we brought you forward from your Earth to help us,_ Elli's dragon explained, _now we need Dana's help to save our friends._

"You could've warned us!" Elli raged, slapping her dragon's side pretty hard.

"We'll sort out all the details later," I commented, getting down to the task at hand as I headed over to the other bronze and rider.

"Your brother?" I asked as I whipped out my scan pad.

G'narish nodded. "Can you help him?"

"The Scoring is pretty bad," I responded, examining the data the scan pad is revealing.

"What is that?" Elli wondered, intrigued by the device in my hand.

"Scan pad," I replied, fine-tuning the settings. "Gives me a detailed analysis of a patient's injuries so I can formulate a care response."

_This is why we came here,_ Chlorith explained, leaning her massive head in closer. _Somehow, I sensed what this thing could do._

"They're both in pretty bad shape," I muttered, "but I think we can help both of them."

"Are you serious?!" Raeana exclaimed. "With that damage?!"

"It won't be easy," I sighed, turning to Elli and Raeana, "but I believe we can repair the damage."

"How?" was all Elli could sputter.

"Skin grafting."

Elli's eyes lit up. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

"I've heard of that," Raeana added. "Sometimes, someone who has been badly burned has portions of good skin removed and sutured in place of damaged tissue in order to restore the patient."

"I used a similar technique to repair Laneth's mangled wing," I explained. "She and her rider came out of _between_ right into a massive tangle of Thread."

"That's what happened to D'nag!" this G'narish exclaimed.

I nod. "Fortunately, your brother and his dragon aren't nearly as bad off as Darla and Laneth were, so I'm hopeful of a full recovery. It'll just take a while."

Then, I turned my attention to the first queen and her rider who had landed with G'narish and his brother. I nearly dropped my scan pad when I recognized who she was.

"By the First Egg!" I hissed, hands trembling. "She… how… what by all the Hells is she doing here?!"

"You know who she is?" Elli asked.

"Every citizen of Pern knows who Moreta is!" I exclaimed, my eyes threatening to pop from their sockets. "How in the hell did she get here?! She reportedly died back in the 6th Pass after exhausting herself distributing the vaccine!"

"Chlorith," Elli grunted in answer, turning accusing eyes on her dragon. "She got it in her insane head to jump back 800 Turns to rescue her heroine."

"Her blood chemistry is all shot," I hissed, double checking the scan pad readings. "Orlith is just as bad."

Putting the scan pad back in my pocket, I unclipped the walkie talkie from my belt.

"G'rtan, M'rice! Come in!" I radioed.

"A walkie talkie!" Raeana exclaimed.

"Just like back on Earth!" Elli chimed in.

"What's up, Boss?" M'rice radioed back. "Sounds urgent!"

"Hustle your dragon butts over to my place, STAT!" I ordered. "Bring the triage team! Meet me at the clearing behind my place!"

"On our way!" G'rtan responded. "Out!"

Clipping the walkie back on my belt, I swapped it out for my satphone and punched in a special number.

"Yoko Med Bay," Ryeena responded. "Dana, what's up?"

"Code Red, Ryeena," I told her. "I need two zero-g med bays readied stat for two riders. And prep zero-g berths for their dragons. One's Scored pretty badly; the other has nearly depleted blood chemistry."

"We'll be standing by in the docking bay," she assured me.

"Oh, and Ryeena,…"

"Yes?"

"I want you to personally see to the queen rider we're sending up, do you understand?"

"Why?"

"You'll see when the patient arrives."

I knew Ryeena would be wondering about that, but to her credit, she merely said, "Understood. We're standing by. See you soon!"

With that, she broke the connection.

"Zero-g bays?" Elli wondered.

"These two are both in bad shape," I explained. "Caring for them in a zero-gravity environment will minimize the stresses on their already depleted bodies."

"We're going up to the colony ships?" Raeana excitedly exclaimed, glancing skyward.

"We have no other choice," I finished just as G'rtan and M'rice backwinged to a landing a short distance away. "It's the best chance they have to survive."

During their battle to bring an end to Thread, the Dragonriders had discovered that moving large objects was no problem for their dragons… as long as they believed they could move it. Transferring D'nag's bronze and Moreta's queen up to the Yokohama was a simple application of that transfer technique.

"By the First Egg!" Ryeena gasped when she finally laid eyes on Moreta, her astonished eyes meeting mine when we arrived.

"Get her to the med bay!" I ordered, helping G'narish carry D'nag's stretcher. "G'rtan! M'rice!"

"We got this, Boss!" they assured me, easing Orlith and Claranth into their zero-g berths for proper care. "Get going!"

As fast as we could run or the turbolifts could move, we made all possible haste up to the Yoko's med facility. There, we transferred Moreta and D'nag into the special zero-g med bays. Pain killers and antibiotics were administered to G'narish' brother. For Moreta, fluids and electrolytes were hooked up to her via IVs.

"Dana?" Ryeena whispered, glancing past me at the gently floating form of the former Fort Weyrwoman.

"Doesn't matter why they're here, Ryeena," I grimly tell her, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "We are healers. We have to help them."

My young friend nodded, a tear sliding down her cheek. It wasn't hard to guess Ryeena's feelings at seeing her long-thought-dead heroine apparently brought back from the brink of oblivion to flesh and blood life. Only Time would tell what the ramifications would be.

Chapter 5 – Explanations (Elli's P.O.V.)

"So, Ariana was right," I said in a voice of pure awe. "We did get sucked into an alternate reality."

Dana nodded.

"I get why Moreta would need zero gravity to recover, but why D'nag?" Raeana wondered. "He only got Threadscored, and we can do skin grafting in a normal hospital."

"With a grave injury like this," Dana explained, "zero gravity helps the wounds heal faster. It's standard practice now in the FSP."

"What does FSP stand for?" inquires G'narish.

"Federated Sentient Planets," Dana replied. "I found a message rocket that came from here and journeyed to Pern to see if there were any survivors after 2500 years. You seem like you know a lot about old Earth, but you don't know what the FSP is. Why is that?"

"Blame Ruth for that one," I answer, good-naturedly. "It was AIVAS' idea to take the dragons back to Earth to help the Pernese regain some of their lost technology, but it was Ruth's idea to journey back 4000 Turns instead of going to the Earth of this time. Thank God everyone was wearing space suits! Otherwise, no one would've survived the journey _between_."

"Weren't the Buenos Aires and the Bahrain destroyed?" asked G'narish. "We did that as soon as AIVAS instructed us to."

"I don't know why it wasn't done in my reality," Dana replied with a shrug, "because I landed here long after Master Robinton had passed away. Still, with a little information I uncovered during my research into the Pern Colony Charter, I was able to reactivate the AIVAS unit and give it a new primary function."

"What is that primary function?" I asked.

"To bring the Pernese up to speed with the technology their ancestors had without harming the planet."

"We've rediscovered electrical outlets from their journey to Earth," G'narish explains, giving me a hug, "and we've rediscovered cell phones and the Internet. We don't have all the websites up and running, but we have Facebook, AIVAS (which is actually a search engine with all the AIVAS files in it), and YouTube, which has all AIVAS recordings — audio and video."

"And we've added our own recordings with newly invented web cams and the cameras on our cell phones," I chime in. "We didn't have sat phones in my time, so we used the Yokohama's satellite in the Southern Continent and erected towers for relays in the North. The runner craft is now obsolete, but we're trying to organize sports teams to give those men and women something to do. I've made the suggestion of every Hold or Hall having a sports team of some kind, but not letting any dragonriders join those teams until the Pass is over. They wouldn't have time for daily practice and daily drill. We can't risk any deaths from Threadscore because the dragonriders missed drill because they were practicing for some frivolous sport. After the Pass is over, all we'll have to do is stargaze and make sure no comet hits us. Have your dragons discovered telekinesis yet?"

"Not yet," Dana replied, smiling slightly, "but my queen and Ryeena's can chew firestone."

"That's odd," I muttered, puzzling over that discrepancy. "I wish Chlorith could chew firestone. I tried it once with her because we were having problems with another queen rider, and the suggestion was made that she chew firestone. All a queen does is bite her tongue and barf up paste. She doesn't have a second stomach."

"Hmmmmmm," said Dana. "Tarnaa's a very unique queen."

"So is Chlorith," I argued. "She's the smartest dragon on Pern. She learned how to sing telepathically. She's now directing a choir of singing dragons!"

"Our dragons can sing physically," Dana said, "but only to one song."

"Lemme guess, 'Moreta's ride'?" I asked.

"No, 'Keymon's Song'," she replied.

"That's not a Pernese song, is it?" I wondered, unfamiliar with the title.

Dana took a deep breath and began to sing. I wanted to sing with her, but the language was completely foreign to me. By the second verse, Goldie, Elizabeth, and Marie-Antoinette were all singing along. By the fourth verse, Chlorith, Gyarmath, Orlith, Miroirth, and Tarnaa were all singing along. They right on key! In fact, they added their own harmonies to the song which fit in nicely! Even more amazing was the dreamlike quality the song produced! It was breathtaking!

"Damn!" I said when the song ended. "I should've recorded that!"

"You don't even have a tape recorder on you," Raeana pointed out.

"I do have my DVR," I responded. "I brought it to the Harper Hall to record their Threadfall performance."

"No one's ever recorded 'Keymon's Song' before," said Dana. "I think it's because no one yet has recording equipment in this reality. I see that digital voice recorder hanging on a lanyard around your neck. Does it work?"

"I have to charge it every day," I explained. "I do have my laptop I brought from home, so I can most definitely record sound and edit it. I do have another question for you, though. Do none of your dragons' names end in th?"

"For every other dragon on Pern, yes," Dana chuckled, smiling. "I'm not entirely sure why Tarnaa's and Sylene's don't, but those were the names they called themselves when we Impressed. I never questioned it."

"Still, I can see where that might be confusing," she went on, giving her fire lizard's eye ridge a scratch. "As you noted, every other dragon's name ends in 'th'. I do recall from one of AIVAS' files that someone once quipped that it's because a dragon's tongue is forked and they lisp, hence the 'th' at the ends of their names. But since dragons don't speak aloud like their riders… Maybe the quipper was just trying to be funny. It may also be possible that my arrival on Pern subtly altered the timeline here, allowing for the name divergence. But that's pure speculation on my part. We may never know the answer to that riddle."

"Laneth ends in a 'th', though," I remarked. "I suppose they can't have duplicates from the same Pass because they don't have surnames that they can use to distinguish between dragons that have the same first name. There are two Branths but one of them was clutched during the 8th pass, and the other was clutched during the Long Interval. Brown Branth was already there when Bronze Branth came forward."

"We should tell the weyrleaders about all this," Kara suggested to Dana.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I cautioned. "It'll kill G'narish to see Nadira alive."

"Why is that?" wondered Ryeena.

"Nadira had her throat slit by an ambitious queen rider who wanted to be senior weyrwoman in her place," I explained. "Danala deliberately let her queen rise at the same time as Baylith. Baylith was killed, but Karenth survived. She literally sucked the blood out of Baylith's jugular vein. Danala controlled the whole flight, which I thought was impossible for a dragonrider to do, but Karenth was remorseful after what she had done. Danala next attacked Rollith, but Chlorith bit Karenth and saved Rollith's life. Then Danala went after Lessa. Lessa got the better end of the stick during that battle. Karenth came to her senses and suicided after Chlorith bit her again, and Lessa slit Danala's throat. She was pissed off, let me tell you! But, anyway, seeing Nadira alive would destroy G'narish."

"What Turn is it in your reality?" asked Dana.

"Present Pass 35, almost 36," I answered. "What Turn is it here?"

"Present Pass 25," Dana informed me. "I've been here four Turns already."

"I've been here 14," I said.

"You're pregnant!" one of the new arrivals cried. "How did you travel _between_ being pregnant?"

"I'm guessing the space suit protected the babies," I replied. "I wouldn't go with Chlorith to rescue Moreta because I was pregnant. Now that I know space suits protect pregnancies, I could've gone with her and saved my poor daughter the trip!"

"Let's scan you and make sure the babies are indeed all right," Dana said authoritatively.

She took out her scan pad and ran it over my potbelly.

"A boy and a girl, and they're just fine," she sighed, smiling. "I'm guessing every rider should wear space suits from now on if they're pregnant."

"Perhaps we should remove some from the Yoko's bridge," G'narish suggested.

"In which reality?" I grinned at him.

"Both!" he cried staunchly. "We can't have important riders out of commission just because they don't want to abort their babies."

"That's a F'lar move!" I laughed.

"It is also a good one," Dana agreed.

"What's the first step we need to take?" asked the rider named M'rice.

"Orlith and Moreta need oxygen," Dana directed. "We can encapsulate Moreta and use hyperbaric therapy to improve her O2 intake."

"What about their dragons?" Ryeena injected.

"Clear all non-essential personnel out of the docking bay," Dana replied. "Then we can increase the bay pressure and O2 levels in a modified hyperbaric treatment. That'll do two things: help speed Orlith's recovery and aid with the skin regeneration on Claranth."

"On it!" M'rice called out as he disappeared down the hall.

"And G'rtan, get the scalpels ready," Dana directed. "I want you to assist me in the skin grafting on D'nag."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Kara and Ryeena in concert.

"Kara, get the IV started on both riders and dragons," Dana replied, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Ryeena, prepare the anesthesia."

"What do you use for anesthesia?" I asked. "Fellis juice?"

"So now we know our two realities are similar in at least one respect," Dana chuckled, prepping for her work on D'nag. "We mix it with the IV fluids so that it's constantly being administered to the patient so that they don't wake up in the middle of surgery. We also administer numbweed as a topical pain killer, but stronger pain killers are being developed for internal pain."

"Perhaps we should let our weyrleaders know what happened today," I said.

"And let the ones in this reality meet Elli and Chlorith," G'narish added. "I could also warn this timeline's Nadira so that myself in this reality doesn't have to suffer the way I do every time I think of her."

His voice broke on the last few syllables, turning away from us as it happened. I put an arm around his shoulders.

"I know you still miss her, my heart," I gently remarked. "Let it out."

"We each have something in common, Dana," I went on in an aside. "You're a medical healer, I'm a mental health healer. It has always been my dream to work in the mental health field, but my DVR counselor wouldn't let me go to school for mental health. She didn't think I could handle the job. With G'narish's PTSD, I think I'm doing pretty well."

"You have PTSD?" Dana was clearly astounded.

"I thought I saw D'nag obliterated by that heavy tangle of Thread that caught him," G'narish muttered, shaking his head against the images that were conjured up. "I didn't realize until much later that what I had actually seen was him vanishing because my daughter's queen rescued him. I never saw Ariana come up from behind and grab Claranth's wing. I suffered that way for nearly four Turns until she decided through a vision that she had to rescue him. She lost her sight due to fire-head and gained prescient sight. My mother, Cassandria, had the sight as well. She never made it forward to this time because her junior weyrwoman Petra sought to do the same thing Danala did. Only her queen died in the ensuing battle. Both Petra and Cassandria suicided at the loss of their dragons, leaving the then 16-year-old Nadira the senior weyrwoman of Igen Weyr."

"Wow!" whispered Dana. "Quite the series of events. A rough journey, to be sure. I could see that bringing on the PTSD."

"Wait a sec!" I suddenly exclaimed, glancing frantically about. "Where's Ariana? I thought she was supposed to come with us. Where is she?"

"Oh no!" G'narish cried. "She must not have gotten the image! She wasn't with us when we came here by mistake the first time. Elli got the image wrong. She does that a lot. She was thinking of Cove Hold, but at the same time she was wishing Moreta were in a hospital, and that wish must've interfered with the image. That first arrival was a complete accident, but our very prescient daughter insisted that this was a hospital, so we came back, hoping you could help us. I'm very worried she didn't get the image from Chlorith. She can speak to any dragon the way her twin Oriana, Raeana, and Elli can."

"An ability that I also share," said Dana confidentially. "I could try calling to her dragon. What's her name?"

"Aureath," G'narish sobs, bursting into tears. "She and Aureath were supposed to be with us!"

"Did they even take off with us?" I asked.

"No, they didn't," Raeana replied. "They stopped to say hi to Tiffany. She was coming out of her weyr."

"I really wanted to see how the mating flight turned out," I muttered. "Perhaps we should've stayed behind and added her to the expedition. I didn't hear her coming, and I was so excited that I just told everyone to get their asses in the air. Do you think they tried to follow us?"

"Hmm, I can't seem to reach them," Dana sadly reported. "It's possible that they haven't even left yet."

_I hear them_, Chlorith announced.

"You know, that actually makes sense," Dana said aloud, smiling at my dragon. "You both come from the same reality, so, naturally, you'd be more sensitive to their thoughts than I."

_They are still home telling Tiffany about Ariana's vision, _Chlorith continued to report_. They are safe._

"Have them come straight to this Yokohama, Chlorith," Dana directed, "but have them use the secondary docking bay. Can you see the image I'm sending?"

_Yes, it is very clear_, my dragon replied._ I will project the image now. They have leftover space suits from the last time they ventured up onto the Yokohama's bridge. They come._

"Let them know we'll meet them in the docking bay," Dana said, heading for the door. "This way, everyone."

A quick sprint down the hall, a fast turbolift descent to the proper deck, and we all emerged in the secondary docking bay just as Ariana and Oriana appeared from _between_ astride their queens.

"Ancestors!" I heard Dana gasp as Ariana slid down her dragon's side and removed her helmet.

I could tell by the look on Dana's face, (glimpsed through Chlorith's contentedly whirling eyes), that she was astounded once again to see how young our twins were.

"How old are they?" she whispered to me.

"They're nine Turns old," I proudly replied. "They Impressed at the tender age of six."

"Seriously?!" Dana exclaimed, whistling in astonishment. "And I thought my Impression was unusual!"

"I was against the Impression because of how young they were," I went on, "but you can't stop an Impression once it's been made."

"In my case, we nearly lost Tarnaa before Impression could be made," Dana explained, a solitary tear sliding down her cheek. "I actually tried to refuse her choice because no man had ever Impressed a queen."

"Wait, you used to be a man?!" G'narish exclaimed, absolutely bug-eyed in astonishment.

Dana nodded.

"Physically, at least, when I arrived on Pern," she continued to explain. "What no one knew was that my gender identity… how I saw myself inside… was female."

"You were transgendered!" Raeana concluded.

Dana nodded again.

"You had a vision about the Impression, didn't you?" Ariana asked, taking Dana by the hand.

"I did," Dana admitted, smiling as she patted Ariana's hand, "but I didn't realize that it was a prescient glimpse until I heard Tarnaa's voice in my head that day on the Benden Hatching Grounds."

"Then how did you change into a girl?" G'narish wanted to know.

"Because of Wirenth," Dana replied.

"Brekke's queen?!" I gasped. "But she died in that mating flight and battle with Prideth!"

_She heard Wirenth between_, Chlorith informed me, _even though she was not._

"That's impossible!" G'narish exclaimed.

_Dana was performing Keymon's Song the day after she Impressed Tarnaa,_ Chlorith informs me. _She believes all those dragons singing somehow opened a momentary temporal rift back to the moment Wirenth went 'between'. That rift served as a bridge, allowing Dana to hear Brekke's queen, and through that link, Dana was able to call Wirenth forward through Time to Benden the moment she went 'between'._

"She was bleeding all over the place," Dana whispered, more tears falling. "We were wedging all manner of cloth into the open wounds, trying to save her. I was soaked head to toe in Wirenth's blood. Some of it found its way into the bite wounds on my arm…"

"Bite wounds?!" I gasped. "From what?"

"From Tarnaa," Dana replied. "While I was desperately trying to get her to choose another instead of me, a woman came down from the tiers, seizing Tarnaa's head between her hands, trying to force Impression."

"But Tarnaa had already chosen you," Ariana quietly said, squeezing Dana's hand. "You got bitten by her, trying to defend the woman from Tarnaa's attack."

Smiling down at Ariana, she nodded.

"By the First Egg!" G'narish hissed.

"While I was desperately trying to save Wirenth, some of her blood soaked through my bandages," Dana continued to explain, "making its way into my body through the bite wounds. It burned like crazy, distracting me. Then, one of the plugs gave way, dousing me with more of Wirenth's blood. I ended up swallowing some of it before I realized it."

The docking bay was deathly silent hearing that.

"I had to save Wirenth," Dana wept, tears falling as she continued to explain. "Just like you, Elli, I used Tarnaa's eyes to see what I was doing while I tried to suture Wirenth's wounds closed. Eventually, my surgical kit arrived, and I was finally able to close all of Wirenth's wounds, saving her life. But the blood I'd swallowed and what had penetrated my bite wounds took its toll. I eventually passed out, burning with fever. When I finally awoke seven months later, I had somehow been transformed into the woman you see."

"Usually, I'm uncomfortable with the concept, because God made you a certain way for a reason," I quietly commented, coming up to take Dana's other hand, "but you didn't ask for the transformation, and you seem at peace with the way it turned out. I won't hold it against you. Besides, Dana can be a boy's name or a girl's, so you didn't have to do much in changing it."

"My name was John before my rebirth," Dana whispered.

"Dana's better than plain old John, anyway," I said, smiling back at her. "Besides, how would you change that to make it female? Johnna? Johnnie? Neither fits you. Dana is so much better."

"Thank you," Dana whispered, sniffling back a tear.

I reached out to give her a hug, and to my surprise, she accepted it.

"I mean, we've only just met, but I feel like I've known you all my life!" I said, trying to explain my impulse to hug her.

"We're not going to transform, are we?" Oriana worriedly inquired.

"No, silly goose," I replied, smiling at her. "You're already girls, and you Impressed girl dragons."

"I want to give you grandkids when I grow up," Ariana declared, "and I will."

"Yes, you will, both of you," said Dana. "There's no birth control on Pern in either reality, is there?"

"Nope," I chuckled, "hence a 50-year-old being pregnant. I Impressed when I was 36. I tried to refuse the Impression because I was too old, blind, and new to Pern, but Chlorith started keening, (she does that a lot), and I couldn't refuse after that."

"I didn't want to be a dragonrider, either," Dana told us. "I had sworn an oath, devoting myself to being a healer. It took me a long time to finally accept Tarnaa… to accept Impression. I rejected the Search, but Tarnaa, in spite of everything, was determined to have me as her rider. I was afraid of my gifts because I watched a dear friend of mine get beaten to death because of his telepathic abilities. I had no abilities at all until I came here. It started with the dreams."

"Prescient dreams I firmly believe in," I said. "I've had a couple of them, but it took years before they came true. It's people just telling me what's going to happen like Ari here that give me the creeps."

"I dreamt you were coming," Dana confided.

"I knew we would," Ariana chimed in. "Oriana has the sight too, but it hasn't festered itself yet."

"Manifested," Dana and I spoke in unison.

"She gets words screwed up sometimes," I confided to Dana. "She can't tell the difference between drama and trauma. She keeps saying G'narish has post dramatic stress recorder."

That elicited a laugh from Dana, Ryeena, and Kara.

"Can all of you speak to dragons?" asked Ariana, blushing crimson at the laughter and trying desperately to change the subject.

"The three of us can," Dana replied, giving Ari a hug. "G'rtan and M'rice can't. I was the only man who could for a long time, but then I transformed. Funny thing is, the ability to speak to all dragons seems to only manifest itself in the women of Pern… like Lessa, Brekke, Kara, and my assistant, Ryeena, though she can only do it when she touches a dragon."

"G'narish can hear Chlorith, but only because we're weyrmates," I offered. "Raeana, the twins, my pseudo twin sister Tiffany, who came from Earth with me, and I can speak to any dragon on Pern."

"And it is well known to every citizen of Pern that Moreta can also speak to any dragon," Dana said. "Once we've got her stabilized and recovering, she could really help us a lot in our hospital."

"She really could," I agreed. "I'll bring the Weyrleaders as soon as I possibly can. R'mart stepped down and was mowed down by a dragonrider who wanted dragons to turn medieval because he was bored with the idea of stargazing after the Pass ended. He pretended we were all abominations and flamed D'ram, Pilgra, M'rand, R'mart, and Bedella down. He recruited other dragons and riders by inserting a subliminal programming into a syringe and injecting a recording into their brains. We actually had dragon going against dragon until Chlorith followed Karenth's tactic… killing him and his dragon. That stopped the programming because it needed its originator to work. I can't mention his name without Chlorith weeping. She remembers what she did and is traumatized by it. She went against her own programming to save Pern that day. Oh no, there she goes!"

I took her head in my arms and rocked it gently back-and-forth.

"You did the right thing, Chlori," I said.

"Dragons don't weep," Dana observed.

"This one does," I responded. "She can't actually shed tears, but she calls it weeping because I say I see a lot of things when I really don't. Her keening is the dragon equivalent of weeping, so therefore, she's weeping."

I could tell Dana had taken a great liking to Chlorith, as she reached out and stroked an eye ridge.

"Your lifemate is right, Chlorith," she said gently. "You acted with courage, doing what was needed to protect your world. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for any rider that might start something like that. You're 10 Turns in your past, so anything's possible."

"I want to warn Nadira about Danala," G'narish cried passionately.

"Danala might not even exist in this reality," I said. "I don't."

"I do though, so Danala and D'lan might, and Seska most certainly does if I'm mated with Nadira."

"Not necessarily," I argued.

"I can ask our G'narish questions once I tell him about this new quantum ergokinesis of the dragons," Dana said. "I don't generally get into the Weyrleaders' personal lives, but if your daughter caused some harm in your reality, then it would be prudent to warn our G'narish that that might happen here."

"And Nadira," G'narish added again. "If she dies in this reality, I will have no one replace her. Not that anyone could, but I can't stand to be alone, and I'm sure the me of your universe is the same way."

"All right, let's call your Weyrleaders to—what did you call it?—Robinton Cove, and after we meet with them, we can take you to our Honshu and introduce you to our Weyrleaders. There might be a few differences because Telgar and High Reaches have had changes in Weyrleaders since I came here, and if you were in our reality, I would've been here only four Turns."

"Fair enough," said Dana. "Once we've done all we can for Moreta, D'nag, and their two dragons, I'll bespeak the dragons of this reality and tell them we need to have an emergency meeting."

Chapter 6 – A Most Unusual Weyr Meeting (Dana's P.O.V.)

"That was a brave thing you did, Ariana," I said, giving Aureath's diminutive rider a gentle hug. "It's good to see you again."

"Again?!" Elli spluttered, glancing at the two of us. "But this is the first time you've met!"

I shook my head, renewing Ari's hug. "Do you remember when I directed you and Raeana to land on the beach?"

"What of it?" Raeana wondered, a little confused.

"I asked you to have the others land in that clearing behind my place," I explained. "Just as the two of you were touching down, I glanced back at the clearing. I saw four dragons landing…"

"Four?!" Elli exclaimed, her eyes bugging out.

I nodded.

"G'narish with D'nag were helping Gyarmath land Claranth," I went on. "Moreta astride her Orlith was being guided down… by Ariana and Aureath."

"What?!" Elli gasped, turning white as a sheet.

"I'm guessing Aureath snagged the image Chlorith was broadcasting to the others," I said, once more giving Ari a hug. "I must say… it was excellent work for one so young, let alone such a young dragonrider! She did good, Elli, real good!"

"I knew we'd be okay," Ari said, glancing up at me.

"Let me guess," I chuckled, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead. "You had a vision about it, didn't you?"

Grinning broadly, Elli's child vigorously nodded.

"Ariana Swanson, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days!" Elli growled, coming up to us, anger sparking from her eyes.

Just as quickly, the anger fades, and she gives her daughter a huge heartfelt bear hug.

"I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you, Ari," Elli wept, her hug never letting up. "Just promise me you'll be careful, okay?"

"Mmm hmm!" Ariana replied, nodding vigorously, tightening her hug. "I promise!"

"Welcome aboard the Yokohama, everyone," I said, bowing to all. "Ori, Ari, Aureath and Aurelith will have to wait here. I need to get back to my patients."

"Can we come?" Ori begged, her eyes flitting from me to her mother.

Elli glanced from her daughters to me, a question on her face.

Just then, Chlorith, Elli's queen, popped from _between_, settling to the deck next to her own two children.

_I had to relocate here,_ she complained, settling her wings to her back. _The others are doing something in that bay and told me I had to leave._

"I am sorry about that, Chlorith," I apologized, giving her a gentle pat on the neck. "I can sense that you are just as worried about Claranth and Orlith as your riders are worried about D'nag and Moreta. We're setting up the main docking bay for zero-g and elevated pressures so we can give their dragons hyperbaric therapy to help speed their recovery."

_I'll have to AIVAS this hyperbaric whatchamacallit thing,_ Elli's dragon thrummed, struggling with the strange expression.

"You were right, Elli," I chuckled, giving Chlorith another pat.

"About what?" she wondered.

"She is one smart dragon!" I replied, a smile coming to Elli's face.

_We have smart riders,_ Tarnaa declared.

That remark gets a chuckle out of all of us.

"Now, I have some patients to see to," I said, returning to the task at hand. "Follow me!"

Our fire lizards stayed behind to keep the dragons company while we raced back up to the med bays.

Ryeena was right where I'd left her, monitoring Moreta's vital signs and making necessary adjustments to the fluids and meds she was receiving.

"Ryeena?" I asked, prepping myself for D'nag's debridement and grafting.

"She's stable," my assistant replied, sighing nervously. "Another few minutes and…"

"Try not to think about it," I told her, giving her shoulder a gentle thump. "She's alive. Let's see that she stays that way."

"Anything we can do to help?" Raeana asked.

"Anyone here have healer aspirations?" I responded, donning a surgical mask and gloves.

"I do!" Raeana exclaimed, caught off guard. "I've always wanted to be a nurse."

"Good, then you can assist Ryeena while she's tending to Moreta," I decided, stepping up to D'nag's med bay.

"What about us?" Ori inquired, pulling on my sleeve. "Can we help, too?"

"Ori!" Elli groaned, irritated by the question.

"No, it's alright," I assured her, nodding to Chlorith's rider. "Ori, why don't you help me and G'rtan? Ari, since you helped bring Moreta here, why don't you help Raeana and Ryeena?"

"Really?!" she gasped, hardly believing.

"You took responsibility for Moreta's life when you helped her," I said, nodding to her. "Now you have to fulfill that responsibility and help us make her better."

"I will," she solemnly replied.

"G'rtan?"

"We're ready," he responded, activating the med bay's sterile field.

D'nag was badly scored. The debridement to remove and replace the damaged tissue was going to be a difficult process. As it was, it would take many operations over the coming year to complete the entire grafting process, allowing time between surgeries for the body to heal and new tissue to grow back. Not to mention the physical therapy that was going to be needed as part of the procedure.

His dragon wasn't much better. Still, Laneth had been far worse and she had been returned to flight, much to Darla's delight and the amazement of everyone on Pern. All through both operations, I blessed my ancestors that I had paid such close attention to all those field surgical techniques while I'd been at the Academy. That dedication was paying some major dividends here on Pern.

Orlith proved a bit more resilient than her rider, responding quickly to the hyperbaric therapy. Her appetite proved quick to mend and soon she was eating a proper amount for her size and weight.

_Will she be alright?_ Orlith asked one day as I was checking on Moreta's condition.

"Severe exhaustion and overexertion, Orlith," I replied, making a note of Moreta's condition in the medical log. "If she's as tough as you, m'girl, she'll be just fine."

"Orlith?"

The quiet whisper stopped me dead in my tracks. In the next heartbeat, Moreta's eyes flickered open.

"Orlith?" she repeated, glancing about. "Where…"

"Easy, gold rider," I cautioned Moreta, dialing up the artificial gravity in the med pod to half Pern normal. "You're safe and so is your dragon."

"Who…"

"My name's Dana," I said to her. "How do you feel?"

"Like a dragon chewed me up and spit me out because he didn't like the taste," Moreta moaned, wiping her hand across her eyes. "Where am I? What happened?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Holth and I were hopping all over the Northern continent, trying to get everyone vaccinated before there was a second outbreak of the plague," Moreta sighed, closing her eyes briefly. "I can't remember anything else until now."

"I'm happy to report that your efforts saved countless lives all across Pern, my Lady," I informed her, smiling broadly. "A truly heroic effort."

"That's a relief," Moreta sighed, relaxing a bit. Opening her eyes once more, she glanced about, asking, "Where am I? What is this place? Holth! Is she…"

"I am sorry to say that she did not survive, my Lady," I apologized, closing my eyes and bowing my head. Meeting her gaze squarely, I add, "but another dragon has."

"Another dragon? Whose?"

_Who else?_ Orlith chimed in.

"Orlith?!" Moreta gasped, struggling to rise from her bed. "How…"

"You and your queen were rescued by several friends of mine," I explained, gently dialing the gravity field back up to Pern normal. "Please, try to relax. We have a lot to talk about."

_She is awake?_ Chlorith excitedly inquired.

"Who…" Moreta begs.

"One of my dragon friends," I replied, gently easing Fort's former Weyrwoman back down onto the bed. "Elli?"

She joined me by Moreta's med bay.

"Chlorith, my queen, was the one who rescued you from _between_," she explained, fidgeting in her nervousness. "You have to believe me! I had no idea what she was going to do!"

That's when Moreta took in Elli's appearance… especially the white cane!

"Your queen?!" she gasped, clearly startled. "But you're blind! How could you possibly…"

"I told you we had a lot to talk about!" I chuckled, giving Elli's free hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

For the next several hours, Elli and I talked with Moreta, doing our best to explain to her exactly what had happened. When she learned she had traveled over 1000 years into Pern's future, it left her speechless, trembling with the news, tears cascading down her crestfallen face. Everyone and everything she knew… gone… consumed by the relentless forward march of Time.

"You could just send me back!" she argued, tears continuing to fall.

"We could," I responded, holding up a hand to forestall Elli's reply, "but your return could have an unforeseen and devastating effect on the Pern timeline."

"What do you mean?"

"You are a heroine to all of Pern, Lady Moreta," Elli tried to explain, her own tears falling. "Memorialized, idolized by millions. They even wrote a song about you… 'The Ballad of Moreta's Ride'. You were an example of strength, courage, and perseverance to every citizen of Pern. All who came after you have drawn strength and determination from you. They have continued to survive for the last 1000 years all because of you! And, because of that drive and determination, the dragonriders have finally taken steps to end Threadfall on Pern forever!"

"An end to Threadfall?!" Moreta gasped, wide eyed with amazement. "How?"

"Through what your descendants learned about your ancestors, Lady Moreta," I told her. "They discovered that they didn't originate on this planet."

"What?!"

"It's true," Elli conceded. "The people who live on this world are descendants of those who came to Pern to colonize it."

"Look around you, my Lady," I told her. "You are aboard one of the vast colony ships that brought your ancestors to Pern!"

Moreta's jaw fell open, her hands trembling as she slowly glanced about.

"My queen is the one who got the wild idea into her head of rescuing her heroine," Elli muttered, turning pleading eyes to Moreta. "Even the dragons worship you! At least, the ones from my reality do."

Catching that phrase, Moreta inquired, "What do you mean… your reality?"

"Elli and her friends come from a different dimension… an alternate reality," I did my best to explain, "a Pern like the one you know but with subtle differences. If we send you back to your Pern, it could have a cascading, potentially devastating, effect on not only your timeline… but the other realities… those that came into being because a different choice was made at a key moment in time."

"We've only just now got you recovered enough that you have been able to return to consciousness," I continued my explanation. "We don't want to risk a relapse by overtaxing you with too much information."

"We will send you back," I added, once more holding up my hand to forestall Elli's argument, "if that is what you wish. We just want to make sure you are recovered enough to fully understand what has happened and can appreciate the ramifications of what could happen if you choose to return."

"Moreta?"

It was Ariana, standing quietly off to one side. I gestured for her to come closer.

"Aureath and I were the ones who helped you land here at Robinton Cove," she quietly explained, shifting her feet nervously and worrying her hands. "We found a hospital here the first time we came, and we brought you here hoping they could make you better."

"You… you're a queen rider?!" Moreta gasped, clearly disbelieving.

"She is, indeed," I chuckled, giving Ari a quick hug, "and one of the youngest I've ever come across!" More seriously, I added, "She and her dragon did a beautiful job helping you. Elli and I are both proud of her!"

Moreta reached her hands out to Ariana. Slowly, tentatively, she took the Fort Weyrwoman's hands, tears cascading down her cheeks.

"No need to cry, little one," Moreta assured her, wiping some of Ari's tears away. "I'm just so… amazed! I hadn't thought it was possible to Impress so young!"

"Barely six years old when it happened," Elli reported, beaming with pride. "I was against it at the time, but Ari's always made me proud with how well she's handling herself… and her dragon!"

"Moreta?"

She turned to me.

"Do you feel up to meeting a few more people?" I asked. "We've invited some of this reality's Weyrleaders and Weyrwomen here to meet you and to discuss how they want to proceed."

"A thousand years in the future!" Moreta whispered, her voice filled with awe. "And Pern continues to survive?" I nodded. "How?"

"Why don't I introduce you to F'lar and Lessa of Benden Weyr?" I suggested, waving for them to join us. "They can best explain to you what they have had to endure in order to keep Pern alive."

"And I will be the first to tell you that I drew great courage and strength from your legend, Moreta," F'lar chimed in, bowing to her. "You have served as an inspiration to everyone alive today on Pern."

"If you had not acted during that pandemic in the 6th Pass," Lessa commented, giving Moreta's hand a grateful squeeze, "a lot of holders and weyrfolk alike would have perished. What then would've happened to Pern if not for you?"

"I get the feeling, though," Moreta responded, glancing my way, "that we each, in our own ways, worked to guarantee Pern's survival. I'd love to hear the story."

I left Elli and Ari with Moreta and the two Benden leaders while I went to check on my other patients. D'nag had survived his first debridement and regrafting. Med scanners showed his vitals slowly improving, estimating that he would return to consciousness in just a few more days. Orlith was positively delighted to meet Chlorith, Aureath, and Aurelith, and bronze Gyarmath. They had quite a time gamboling about the secondary docking bay… once I turned off the artificial gravity.

Still, I was more than a little nervous about Elli's G'narish meeting this world's bronze rider. The two Gyarmaths just stood staring at each other as if looking in a mirror. Elli's G'narish did pass on his concerns about Nadira, Danala, D'lan, and Seska to ours, who promised to be on guard against it. The look on Elli's weyrmate when he laid eyes on this world's Nadira was like a spear through the heart, almost too painful to contemplate.

Slowly, carefully, I introduced the other current Weyrleaders and Weyrwomen to the one person they never thought to see in their lifetimes, explaining to them what I could. All were concerned about what would happen to Pern if Moreta was to return to her own time. But all agreed that was her choice to make.

Gathering everyone into one of the Yokohama's conference rooms, I did my best to explain the concept of quantum ergokinesis, the heretofore unknown ability that dragons could journey not just across space and time but to different realities.

"Elli would like to invite some of you back to the Pern of her reality," I went on, nodding to her, "to give you a chance to experience the transfer yourselves."

"It's an interesting idea," Cosira, Weyrwoman of this reality's Ista Weyr, commented.

"I want you to see my Pern," Elli remarked, sweeping the room with her gaze, "because we may need your help."

Chapter 7 – Moreta's Decision (Elli's P.O.V.)

"I think you should come too, Dana," I said gently. "You should see what our Pern looks like. We don't have a hospital like this one. All we really did to change was upgrade our technology. We don't have a fancy scan pad like the one you have. We rely on the dolphins to diagnose problems with patients. We barely just started surgical techniques, and skin grafting was not one of them. I seriously believe you could help us."

"Have you considered the ramifications?" Dana asked. "You could really disrupt your universe if you let me interfere with it."

"It happens," Ariana said complacently. "Fandarel has already invented a sonar tape recorder, so he can invent a scan pad like yours. The rest of it would be easy to do. Dragons need work after the Pass is over. They could seriously use their talons to manipulate joints. Chlorith already does that in her physical therapy lessons. So far, she's only worked on wings, but I know she'll upgrade soon."

_Dragons do not upgrade. We evolve. _ Chlorith said hotly. _When can we go home? I want to show Moreta off to F'lar and Lessa._

"Moreta isn't strong enough yet, you precious darling love!" I fondly argued. "You have to be patient. Once she's strong enough, we can go home."

_But I'm feeling very excited and very hungry_, Chlorith protested, snapping her jaws ferociously. _I want raw meat, and I want it now!_

"Oh shit!" I cursed. "If you still want Gyarmath as your weyrmate, we need to go now! Dana, I'm sorry we have to leave so quickly! I should've known Chlorith was proddy. She mates about a day later than Rollith, my twin's queen. The only reason she wasn't brought along was because she was in the middle of a mating flight."

_She was done by the time we got back from the Harper Hall_, Chlorith complained. _I was listening. Claranth flew Rollith. I don't know how he managed it, but he did, and Rollith wasn't even snobby about it like most queens are. I think she was glad to be rid of Colinath. She always had to go get him during mating flights because he got lost. That's always how he caught her. They'd run into each other. He really puts a bad stereotype on blindness._

"I'd be the same way without you, my precious golden love." I said. "Sometimes I'm still like that even with you."

_Like when you screwed up today and gave me the wrong image_, Chlorith said slyly.

"Her color is pretty bright," Dana observed. "You probably should go. Ori and Ari will be fine here with Ryeena and Kara. Moreta and I, though, are coming with you."

"But what about Tarnaa?" I gasped.

"I'm leaving her behind. Orlith is strong enough now to carry us. Moreta and I have to meet with your Weyrleaders or they'll never believe your story."

I nodded in agreement, but worried about where Tiffany was supposed to go now that all the other queens were gone already. Well, that wasn't true. Calentia was still at Honshu. Perhaps Tiffany could take a trip to her father's new Computer Hall.

We burst out of _between_ and Chlorith made a straight-line dash for the feeding Grounds. G'narish hadn't wanted to leave D'nag behind, but he recognized my unwillingness to mate with anyone else but him, so he reluctantly left him. His brother had survived the first of many skin graftings, so he was on the mend. Now, as Chlorith blooded her kills, Tiffany came rampaging out of the Hold, fire blazing out of her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me about your little adventure?"

She never yelled, but the quietness in her voice was even more menacing than a Nazi's shout.

"You were in the middle of a mating flight," I meekly replied. "I couldn't bring you along."

"But you brought my weyrmate along!" she croaked, betraying the depth of her feelings.

She always hated not being included in things.

"Seriously, I didn't know who your new weyrmate was, so I couldn't very well disrupt your sexual escapade, could I?"

"Where's everyone else?" she demanded.

"Still in the alternate reality," I informed her. "I came back because Chlorith's rising, so you'd better go!"

"I'll take you and your daughter to the others," Dana spoke softly.

"And how are you going to get there?" I demanded. "You left your dragon behind!"

"Who are you?" Tiffany demanded.

"I'm Dana Sterling," she replied, "formerly an FSP pilot. I found a message rocket floating dead in space and went to investigate it. Elli and your dragons seem to have manifested the talent of quantum ergokinesis, the ability to move between alternate realities. Elli invited me back here so that I could speak with the Weyrleaders of this reality."

"I thought that was impossible except in role playing." Tiffany's anger vanished completely in her skepticism.

"Tell you what," said Dana. "Let's let Chlorith mate and I'll take you and your daughter with me to explore our reality. Then Elli can call a meeting of the other Weyrleaders, and we can return here and see what they have to say."

"Calentia's not my daughter; she's G'narish's," Tiffany corrected her.

"Mine, too!" I protested mildly.

"How are we going to call you?" I asked, dubiously. "No, no, Chlorith, suck it, don't eat it!"

"We'll find a way," Dana said reassuringly as she mounted Rollith with Tiffany.

Within seconds, they were awing and gone _between._

Once the flight was over, G'narish and I soaked up the ecstasy that always followed sex, arms wrapped tightly about each other's backs.

"So how are you going to call her?" G'narish wanted to know. "There's a temporal separation as well as a universal one."

"She's 10 turns in the past, as well. I forgot about that," I realized. "Well, here goes nothing."

I reached out with my mind and called softly, "Dana? Tarnaa? The flight's over. You can all come back now."

There was a long pause. We waited with bated breath. What had I done? What had I brought my twin and daughters into?

_They come!_ Chlorith was ecstatic.

I whooped with joy. It had actually worked!

_Miroirth, Aureath, Aurelith, Zareth, and Orlith are all here, _Chlorith reports_._

"Orlith?!" I stammered, surprised by this development. "They're supposed to be resting and recovering their strength! You didn't call her, Chlorith, did you?"

_Of course not!_ Chlorith cried indignantly. _I know more than anyone else that they needed to stay behind!_

"Okay, Chlori, I believe you," I replied, mollified somewhat. "But how the hell is she going to get up here?"

As it turned out, Moreta used the railings on either side of the staircase as she climbed. Orlith came to rest on the Queens' ledge, taking full advantage of the Southern sun.

"Am I on the Southern Continent?" asked Moreta, her breathing a little labored from the climb.

"You sure are," I said happily, giving the former Fort Weyrwoman a warm hug. "Welcome to Honshu, one of the Ancients' original settlements. We call it Honshu Weyrhold now."

"And here come the Weyrleaders," G'narish chimed in with a sense of foreboding. "G'bare looks fit to be tied!"

"Why would he be angry?" I wanted to know.

"Who's G'bare?" asked Dana.

"He's the new Weyrleader of Igen Weyr," G'narish explained, "and he's Raeana's weyrmate. They took over after I thought I saw D'nag die."

G'narish's deep-set almond-shaped black eyes welled up with tears at the memory. I naturally didn't see the tears, but I still knew they were there. I put an arm around his shoulders.

"He'll recover, Narish," I said tenderly. "He just needs to get better. The first grafting Dana gave him already saw a significant improvement in his vital signs. He just needs time and rest now."

"I know, but the memory still gives me flashbacks," he muttered, eyes closed against the images. "And I bet you anything I'm not alone. I wonder what D'nag'll do the next time he sees Thread fall."

"How did you know he wasn't dead?" Moreta gently inquired.

"Ariana went to great peril to rescue him and bring him forward in time three Turns," G'narish replied. "I thought he was dead all that time. I could've sworn I saw Thread obliterate him completely."

"Uh-oh," I groaned, feeling the shaking from his shoulders. "It's okay, honey. He's going to be all right."

"Perhaps we should delay this meeting until his flashbacks are over?" Dana suggested.

"We've all seen them before," Lessa informed the rest. "We just have to wait it out. He's going to black out in a few seconds and cling to Elli like stardust to the Yoko."

Sure enough, he did just that, crying for D'nag not to leave him, not to die.

"Perhaps we should take him back to the Yoko?" Dana recommended.

"And who might you be?" F'lar demanded.

Dana introduced herself and her dragon. She had to repeat Tarnaa's name twice before they understood it.

"I'm assuming their dragons ran out of names that ended with 'th'," I grinned. "We don't have duplicates except the two Branths before R'mart and Bedella were flamed down by D'lan."

"Where are you from?" asked Lessa.

"Robinton Cove," Dana said happily.

With that introduction, she and I took turns telling the Weyrleaders our remarkable story. Then Lessa gasped. We had almost forgotten about Moreta in all our storytelling.

"She's the reason we're here, as a matter of fact," I said, trying to gloss over what I perceived to be a sticky situation. "Chlorith heard 'The Ballad of Moreta's Ride" for the umpteenth time and got it into her head to rescue her from _between_. She had to leave Holth of course, because Leri died on the same day as the Hatching, but she went forward a few days and rescued Orlith, as well. They returned from that, but I was so angry, I accidentally sent Chlorith the wrong image of Cove Hold, and she brought me to Dana's reality. She's crafted a teaching hospital there in memory of Robinton, and she and a few other dragonriders take on patients and heal people."

"Are you telling me there is no hospital in this reality?" Moreta asked.

"Not a one," I tell her, "except for the traditional Healer Halls."

"I used to be a dragon healer," Moreta remarked. "This came in especially handy after Threadfalls, or when their riders had the p-p-plague."

She scrunched her eyes shut for a moment, then took a deep breath.

"What if I took instruction from Dana, then started my own teaching hospital in this reality?"

"Now that is a splendid idea!" Dana and I spoke in concert.

"Only one problem," Dana commented. "How are you going to make the tools needed to scan your patients? I know the dolphins use their sonar to diagnose people's problems, but what if you can't get the patient in water?"

"Can we duplicate your scan pad?" I asked.

"My Fandarel's trying to do just that right now," Dana explained, "but the manufacturing techniques are highly advanced, and unfortunately, so far he's still having no luck."

"Maybe ours will have better luck," Ariana suggested. "I think yours is just about there. Ours have invented a tape recorder that uses sonar to read brainwaves and record thoughts and dreams so that riders can record their dragons' voices on tape."

"Well, it's certainly worth a try," Dana had to admit. "I'll show my people your sonar tape player, and I'll show yours my scan pad."

"That works," I said, and the meeting was broken up with the promise that we'd call upon Dana if we had a crisis, and she promised us she'd help us, even if it disturbed the prime directive.

"But don't you see?" I asked her. "You're not going against FSP directives because humans weren't native to Pern. We devolved, then re-evolved, and you're only helping us get back to where we used to be. I think the Weyrleaders were quite pleased with you. Want to time it back to make sure your patients were okay during your absence?"

Dana shook her head.

"I have to be at my utmost to take care of my patients," she explained. "If I time it, I might experience symptoms of vertigo and weakness, and that could be detrimental to their proper care. It's not worth the risk."

"That's true," I had to admit. "I think G'narish wants to get back, and Moreta might need a few more stints in zero gravity before she's fully recovered. Chlorith says she's very weak."

"I can come and get G'narish when D'nag awakens," Dana offered.

"I need to be with my brother," G'narish stubbornly argued. "He'll recover faster if I'm there with him."

"And I have to get back to Igen," Raeana apologizes. "I'm senior Weyrwoman. I want to work in that hospital, though. I want to be a nurse."

"As long as you're there for Threadfall, you're fine," Lessa reassured her. "You don't know how often I'm gone from Benden Weyr."

"I'm glad," Raeana sighed, relieved to hear that from Lessa. "I'll fight Thread and help out in the meantime." To Dana, she said, "I might even send you some patients if they can manage _between_. Fall's been especially heavy around Igen this turn."

"I'm flattered you think so highly of our teaching hospital," Dana chuckled, giving Raeana's shoulder a gentle squeeze, "but it might sit better with the people of this reality if you had a teaching hospital of your own. Moreta has already offered to help you… once her recovery is complete."

"Killjoy," Moreta muttered, though she smiles as she does.

_Have no fear on that score, Masterhealer,_ we heard Orlith say. _I'll see that she behaves!_

"You're no fun!" the former Fort Weyrwoman chuckled.

"Are you certain this is what you want?" Dana inquired.

Solemnly, Moreta nodded. "I can't risk returning to my own time and accidentally destroying your future."

Quietly, she walked up to me, taking my hands in hers. "You and Chlorith gave me back my life. More than that, you gave me back my dragon, my heart and soul. Staying here and helping you build your own teaching hospital is the least I can do to repay you."

"So be it," Dana said, laying her hands on top of ours. "I can send some of our healer-riders to help you get started…"

Peering out the window of Honshu to the dragons lounging outside, she added, "And Chlorith will always know where to find me if you ever have an emergency."

Pulling out her scan pad, she gave Moreta a quick once over.

"Staying here, then?" she asked Fort's former Weyrwoman.

Moreta nodded.

"Vital signs are stronger," Dana reported, closing her scan pad and putting it away. "Just don't overreach yourself. You're not out of danger yet."

"As if Orlith would let me," Moreta chuckled, smiling at her lifemate just outside.

"Call me if you need anything, Elli," she said to me.

As I watched, Dana helped G'narish put his spacesuit helmet back on before donning her own, an action I found kind of strange. Then, with a wink of her sparkling blue-green dragon eyes and a jaunty salute, Dana takes G'narish's hand and, to our collective stunned amazement, the two vanish _between…_ without a dragon!

Chapter 8 – Back Among The Living (Dana's P.O.V.)

"Whoa ohh!" G'narish exclaimed, stumbling and falling as we emerged from _between_ back aboard the orbiting Yokohama of my reality.

Removing my helmet, I reached down and helped Elli's weyrmate back to his feet.

"You okay?" I asked as he removed his own helmet.

"How did you do that?" he demanded; steely eyes fixed on me.

"Do what?" I wondered, stripping out of the spacesuit.

"Jumping _between_!" he roared, gesturing wildly about. "We weren't on a dragon! How…"

His words trailed off into silence as he stared at my eyes… realization dawning on him as my eyes I knew were slowly changing color… just like a dragon's!

"You… Wirenth…" he spluttered, finding it hard to wrap his mind around the possibility. "By the First Egg!"

"Why don't we go see how D'nag is doing!" I chuckled, helping G'narish doff his own spacesuit.

Back up in the med bay, everyone was quietly going about their work, checking on the status and comfort of our most unusual patient. I found Ari pacing back and forth, fretting about something. It didn't take a prescient clue to figure it out.

"Ari?" I called out as we entered.

"Dana!" she cried, running up to me, tears in her eyes. "Is she alright? Please, she's got to be alright!"

"Relax, precious," I assured her, giving her a comforting hug. "Moreta is just fine."

Poor frantic little Ariana heaved an adult-sized sigh of relief. "Shards, I've been so worried about her since you left! You promise she's okay?"

"I swear, little one," I chuckled, hugging her once more.

"She's still weak," G'narish informed her, pulling up a stool to sit on, "but her vital signs just before we left are growing stronger."

"And, Orlith has fully recovered," I added, nodding. "She'll make sure Moreta behaves!"

"I was so worried," Ari wept, brushing back some of her tears. "You said I had to accept responsibility for her, and I'm trying really hard to do it."

"Ari!" I sighed, kneeling on the ground in front of her. "Ori, come here, please?"

Ari's twin came and stood beside her.

"Were either of you scared about coming here?" I asked them, squeezing their hands. "Afraid to make that jump into the unknown?"

The two girls looked at each other before turning back to me.

"Maybe just a little," Ori admitted, Ari nodding agreement.

"And when you got here, were you maybe a little excited?"

Both girls smiled, nodding vigorously.

"I've been watching the two of you since your arrival in this reality," I explained, smiling at each of them. "Ori, when I asked you to help me and G'rtan during D'nag's debridement, you didn't even flinch when I handed you that tray filled with the dead skin we removed. My assistant, Ryeena? She turned a little green the first time I cut open Darla's queen to repair the Thread damage to her wings."

"Really?" Ori gasped, whirling Ryeena's way.

"It's true, Ori," Ryeena admitted, a wry grin on her face. "But Dana had faith in me, trusted me to help her. In the end, we were able to repair all the Thread damage to both Darla and Laneth. You should've heard the cheers at Benden Weyr when Laneth took to the skies once more. I thought I was going to end up deaf it was so loud!

"Wow!" the two girls gasped.

"And you, Ari," I told her, laying my hand gently against her tear-stained cheek, "you and Aureath did a splendid job helping Moreta's Orlith land at Robinton Cove. The two of you, and your queens, have shown a greater sense of duty and responsibility than many adults four times your age! It has been my greatest pleasure and honor getting to know both of you. Your mother I know is very proud of you both!"

Smiling, weeping, the two girls threw their arms around my neck, hugging me tightly.

"Ori, how's D'nag doing?" I asked her, rising to my feet.

"If I'm reading the… instruments, is that the right word?" I nodded and she continued. "The instruments show his vitals improving."

"Better than expected," Ryeena chimed in, laying a hand on Ori's shoulder.

"Better than expected?!" G'rtan exclaimed, grinning from ear-to-ear. "It's downright miraculous! In fact, med scans say he has a good chance of returning to consciousness any moment now!"

"As badly Threaded as he was?!" G'narish gasped, whirling to stare at his brother. "How is that possible?"

"The advanced medical equipment the Ancients brought with them," I replied, laying a gentle hand on G'narish' shoulder. "With it, we've been able to accelerate D'nag's recovery. If you and the others hadn't stumbled across the dragon's innate quantum ergokinesis skill, he most likely would not have survived in your reality. Bringing him here to this reality saved his life."

Sobbing, G'narish swept Ariana up into a bone crushing hug. "You saved him, Princess. Thank you!"

"It was a team effort!" Ori cheerily added.

Dropping to a knee, G'narish hugged both girls tightly, weeping all the while.

At that moment, the med alerts on D'nag's recovery pod began to quietly chime. Stepping over next to it, I watched with growing delight as first his eyes flickered open then he slowly began to look around.

"G'narish!" I whispered excitedly, waving him over.

Leading the two girls by the hands, he hurried over, coming up on the other side of D'nag's recovery pod.

"G… G… G'narish? Brother?"

"D'nag!" G'narish sobbed, nearly crushing the hand his brother reaches out to him with.

"Where… what…" D'nag stammered, slowly glancing about.

"We've brought you to a healer," G'narish explained, glancing briefly up at me. "She's been operating on you to remove the skin damaged by Thread. She's also been operating on Claranth, doing the same thing for him."

"She's done this before," Ori chimed in, peering up over the edge of the med pod. "She saved another dragon and rider who got Threaded like you did."

"How are we alive?" D'nag begged. "We should be…"

"Little Ari," G'narish told him, giving her a grateful hug. "She and her dragon popped out of _between_ at the precise moment it happened. They took you and Claranth _between_, bringing you forward to our time three years after the incident."

"You… you did that?!" D'nag gasped, eyes bugging out.

"Aureath seems to possess that same unique gift that Lord Jaxom's dragon has," I explained, checking the med readings. "They both seem to know exactly where and when they are. That ability allowed Ariana and her queen to pull off a truly astonishing rescue! That and her prescient sight."

"She can see the future?!" D'nag spluttered.

"I had a vision about the rescue," Ari told him. "That's how I knew Aureath and I could do it, because we already had!"

"Little one, I have no idea what you're talking about," D'nag chuckled, reaching out to pat her on the head. "But, clearly, Claranth and I owe you our lives!"

"I didn't want to see G'narish in any more pain," Ari wept, hugging his arm. "I had to do something to make him better."

"Better than better, princess," G'narish replied, planting a grateful kiss atop her head.

"I seem to have underestimated your recuperative power, D'nag," I said, making one small adjustment to his meds. "We weren't expecting you to return to consciousness for another few days. I'm glad I was wrong. So is G'narish."

"What is this place?" he wondered, once more looking around. "I've never seen anything like it, not even in the Healer Hall at Fort Hold!"

"We're aboard the Yokohama," Ori said, coming up beside Ari. "The Ancients' colony ship. But not the one we know."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, more than a little confused.

"Something quite extraordinary has happened, D'nag," I told him. "You already know how dragons can go _between_ from place to place, and if necessary, to time-it."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"It is a very rare skill called quantum ergokinesis," I explained, meeting his gaze.

"What the hell is that?"

"Basically, it means the dragons and their riders can not only cross time and space," I told him, locking eyes with him, "they have the ability to travel to alternate universes."

For a moment, D'nag appeared confused. When the explanation finally registered, he couldn't stop the gasp that escaped him!

"Chlorith and the others accidently stumbled across the ability while trying to rescue you," I went on, "popping _between _to this reality by mistake, a fortuitous one, because the Cove Hold they brought you to had a teaching hospital on-site with advanced medical equipment to help with your recovery."

"Brother, I've been absolutely out of my mind thinking you had died," G'narish sobbed, unable to hide his emotions. "I won't lie. When Ariana first did what she did, I was furious with her."

"But it didn't take him long to realize it was the only way to do it safely," I added, smiling at Ari. "Bringing you forward through Time meant you wouldn't suffer the stress of timing-it too close to your other self."

"Don't think I've ever seen you cry, Bro," D'nag chuckled, wiping some of the tears from his brother's face. "At least, not since you and Gyarmath Impressed."

"With you back among the living," G'narish laughs, "we'll really have something to celebrate the next Impression Day!"

"Dana?" Ari spoke, tugging on my sleeve.

"What, princess?" I responded, kneeling in front of her.

"What's going to happen to Moreta?"

"You'll be happy to know she plans to stay in your reality," I told her.

"You mean it?!"

"She plans to stay in the future with all of you," I replied, nodding. "After what all of you did for her, she wants to start her own teaching hospital there!"

"That is so totally awesome!" Ori exclaimed, grabbing Ari and swinging her around in an excited dance.

"How long will I have to stay here?" D'nag wondered.

"Initially, I had planned on nearly a year of progressive surgeries to completely repair the Thread damage you incurred," I replied, smiling as I gave his hand a squeeze. "But given the strength of your constitution and the speed of your recovery thus far, I'm revising that estimate down to just a few more months!"

"Whoo hoo!" Ari and Ori chorused in unison, hugging each other and G'narish.

"Dana, that is most welcome news!" G'narish sighed, coming over to give me a hug. "We will see you in our reality to celebrate D'nag's return, won't we?"

_I'd love to go,_ Tarnaa silently remarked.

"I've a feeling my dragon would have me Threaded if we didn't go!" I chuckled.

Laughter, compounded of relief and genuine joy, echoed throughout the med center. We all had something special to look forward to!

Chapter 9 - A Turning of the Tide (Elli's P.O.V.)

For the next few days, Dana and I kept visiting each other's realities to check on each other's progress. When our Lessa heard that Dana had reactivated AIVAS in her reality, she all but demanded that Dana do the same thing in ours. Not only was it reactivated on its original terminal, but it was also installed on all our phones and computers. I wondered if we were doing too much to our realities to make them the same, but Dana just laughed and told me we both had advantages and disadvantages to our realities, and we could use the advantages both provided. The only disadvantage I could see from reactivating AIVAS was that it canceled out all our primitive artificial intelligences. We gave AIVAS a new primary function so that it would not shut down again… to instruct all Pernese in the matter of upgrading our technology.

"Gary and Gr'gor have done well in the rudiments of technology," AIVAS reported one day. "Now you need to upgrade your communication skills. The way Gary and Gr'gor activated this facility on your phones lets this facility act like the Siri of your time. Fandarel is now working on devices similar to your Google Home or Amazon Alexa devices. Those would house this facility very well so you wouldn't have to come to Landing just to consult this facility."

"We were starting to work on those already," I spoke, "but we didn't have an advanced enough A.I.."

"You are the people the Weyrleaders brought from Earth?"

"Yes, we are," I replied. "As you can see, we've adjusted well to life on Pern. We've been here 14 and a half Turns. I have the smartest dragon on Pern. They're evolving past their original programming."

Abruptly, I was interrupted by the sound of keening. Why would Chlorith keen when I told AIVAS she was the smartest dragon on Pern? That was supposed to be a compliment, not a put-down.

"Chlorith, what is it?" I asked telepathically.

_She is no more!_ Chlorith wailed unconsolably.

"Who is no more?" I begged, my heart skipping several nervous beats.

Chlorith wasn't the only dragon at Landing, as class was in session, so why was she the only one keening?

_Baylith_, she wept, her thoughts full of anguish.

"How?" I demanded.

Was it my fault? Had I done something to the prime directive when I had crossed parallels?

_Her rider was very ill_, sobbed Chlorith. _It is our fault, Elli. We should never have been there in the first place._

"I know," I muttered, my own misery growing, "but what can we do about it now?"

_Danala does not exist *there,_ said Chlorith. _Tarnaa informs me it was the Fire-head._

"I did notice she was sneezing an awful lot when we had the Weyrleaders' meeting," I recalled, brows furrowed. "I hope she didn't give it to the rest of them! If so, they can't go _between_, so they can't be healed at Dana's hospital. Sharra probably exists in their reality, but she can't be in two places at once."

_Or can she?_ Chlorith asked deviously, pausing her weeping just long enough to add that little mischievous note.

"I will ask Sharra if she can come with us *there and see if she can diagnose it in any of the other Weyrleaders."

Sharra was awed by the thought of healing people in another reality. Dana's hospital would not be able to accommodate the Weyrleaders, as they could not go _between_ if they had fire-head, so Sharra and Brekke would have to travel between weyrs to help them.

"Chlorith and I are at your disposal, Sharra." I assured her.

"I can hear Chlorith now, too," she remarked. "I've been able to hear her ever since you were sick three Turns ago."

"Nearly four now," I was happy to report. "The twins turn ten today. I was going to go home and help bake them a birthday cake, but that's going to have to wait now. G'narish is going to need me when he hears his weyrmate died a second time. Calentia and Seska will be devastated."

We went _between_, first to the Igen Weyr of that reality, where we found their Sharra in a right state.

"I don't understand!" she muttered. "She was getting better with all the meds I was giving her! Suddenly, she took a turn for the worse and started vomiting. That's not a symptom of fire-head! You become nauseated at the smell of food, but you don't actually vomit."

"What have you been giving her?" asked our Sharra.

"Eliana has been nursing her these past few days," Dana's Sharra replied. "I've been tied up nursing G'narish. He's gotten much better, but I'm afraid he'll take another turn when he hears we've lost Nadira. He's devoted to her."

With another sob, Dana's Sharra turned into my Sharra's shoulder, weeping disconsolately.

"It's not your fault," my Sharra gently assured her. "Eliana's devoted to Seska, and she attempted to kill Calentia in my reality because Calentia Impressed a queen when Seska only Impressed a green."

"Jealous much?" Dana's Sharra asked, raising her face to look into that of her mirror image. "G'narish never speaks about his personal life, but I know he does have two grown daughters. One of them came forward with him, the other was born afterward. Why would Eliana give her the wrong meds?"

That just made Dana's Sharra weep again.

"Perhaps we should ask her," my Sharra suggested, but there was no need.

It seemed Eliana, no matter which reality she came from, couldn't keep a secret. As she walked past, she was muttering to herself.

"The deed is done, my precious. Only forceful women like yourself should have queens. Now you'll get the next queen for sure! Calentia will get the same fate, oh yes, my precious!"

"Who's 'my precious', Eliana?" my Sharra demanded.

That stopped the Weyr headwoman dead in her tracks, her eyes nearly popping from her head as she stared at the two Sharras and the new woman with the white cane, quailing under the fierce stares they gave her.

"Is Seska behind all this?" I demanded. "Why would she begrudge her mother the queen? She could've Impressed a queen from Baylith's next clutch! Why would she hire you to kill them off?"

"What's all this?" Dana demanded, emerging from G'narish's weyr, a grave look on her face, her dragon eyes shading to a brilliant red in their human sockets.

"Eliana has killed Nadira for Seska," I spat.

"She never understood Seska the way I do!" Eliana fired back. "She was so willful, so forceful, and Nadira was a pretty little thing with no backbone. She didn't even have that great of a constitution. She was no fit Weyrwoman, and neither was Cassandria! Petra should've taken over from her! Then we never would've had this problem!"

"You deserve the death penalty!" I roared, rage exploding inside me. "You're a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person! You were in my reality, too. G'narish took care of you *there, but he's not available today!"

I always carried a belt knife on me, more for show than for anything else. I knew I had always said I would never kill a person, but today, I was having the first manic episode I'd had since coming to Pern, and it was the worst ever.

_Lifemate, stop her!_ Tarnaa suddenly called out.

"What?! Who?" Dana spluttered, glancing about, distracted by her lifemate's warning.

_She's going to kill…_

Too late. I unsheathed my belt knife and, in one fluid motion, stabbed Eliana right in the heart. Not much blood flows when you stab somebody there, so there wouldn't be much of a mess to clean up. But it did cause sudden and instantaneous death; Eliana's body thudding heavily to the floor.

For several painful seconds, no one moved, frozen in place by the ferocity of my attack.

"Elli, why?" Dana's Sharra whispered, horrified by what she had just witnessed.

"How… how did you do that?" my Sharra asked.

"I used Chlorith's vision," I replied, the deadly calm of a warrior still in my voice.

"But why?" Dana's Sharra once more begged.

I answered by bursting into tears.

"It seems our two Elianas, despite our different realities, had similar personalities," my Sharra sighed, shaking her head in disgust. "Where we come from, she tried to kill Elli's daughter, Calentia, because her other daughter, Seska, only Impressed a green instead of the queen who chose Calentia."

"And ours killed Nadira so that Seska would have a better chance of Impressing a queen," Dana's Sharra muttered, her voice filled with disgust. "How can the universe let this happen?"

"Do not blame the universe for this," Dana sighed, kneeling to be certain Eliana was dead. "Our timelines all derive from decisions each of us makes in our lives. Every choice we make, for good or ill, creates an alternate reality… also for good or ill. All we can try to do is make the right choices… and hope others do, too."

"Bottom line is, this Eliana killed a Senior Weyrwoman," Dana grunted, rising to her feet. "A tribunal would've probably found her guilty but there's no way of knowing for certain what sort of punishment they would've meted out.

Turning to me, she added, "Given what I've seen of your G'narish' response to even the mention of her name, he probably would've done the same thing. Elli, I'm so sorry."

"Now I know how C-c-chlorith feels," I sobbed hysterically.

Gently, tenderly, Dana took me into her arms, doing her best to comfort me as the two Sharras looked on.

"Um, does anyone else here have fire-head?" my Sharra finally asked.

"Thankfully," Dana's Sharra replied, "we caught it here in time and have taken care of it. You should probably go along to the other Weyrs and see if anyone else has caught it from Nadira."

"Where would she have gotten it from in the first place?" Dana wondered aloud.

"She was recuperating in the south after losing her baby," Dana's Sharra revealed. "I think Eliana was giving her poison even then. She hadn't gone _between_ or anything."

"Hmmmmmm," Dana mused, brows furrowed. "You can have miscarriages for other reasons than just going _between_."

"This one was pretty far along, if you remember, Dana," Sharra reminded her. "Eliana said the cord was wrapped around his neck."

"And she was handling the birth?" I demanded.

"Naturally," said both Sharras.

"The headwoman always handles the birth of a child," Dana's Sharra added.

"Unless it's the headwoman herself who's giving birth," my Sharra chimed in. "Eliana took great pride in handling births, because she never had any children herself."

"She planned this whole thing," I growled, anger returning.

"What do you mean?" Dana asked.

"She killed the baby so that Nadira would go south to recover from her grief at losing him or her," I explained, seething with rage. "She sent her during fire-head season with the full knowledge that Nadira gets sick very easily. She planned this whole damn thing!"

It didn't seem possible that this reality's Eliana had turned out just like mine. Furious, frustrated, I turned and unleashed a savage kick into the side of the former headwoman's corpse.

At that precise moment, this reality's G'narish walked unsteadily into the room.

"What are you doing?" he loudly demanded as I plant another savage kick into the dead woman's corpse. "How dare you?"

"G'narish, wait!" Dana cried, seizing her G'narish's hand before he could turn his belt knife on me.

"First I lose my weyrmate; then I lose my headwoman?"

"Your headwoman killed your Weyrwoman, G'narish!" I cried passionately. "She killed your son, then killed your Weyrwoman. She planned it all! When Nadira lost consciousness from blood loss after giving birth, Eliana strangled the baby. Then, she sent Nadira south to recuperate during fire-head season, knowing full well she'd catch it. Then, when she started getting better, Eliana poisoned her! Now, don't you think that deserved the death penalty?"

"All I know is that she's dead!" this reality's G'narish cried, just as passionately. "Now she won't be able to speak for herself!"

Drawing a long steadying breath, I took my tape player out of my pocket and rewound it so that everyone could hear clearly what Eliana had been mumbling as she walked past me.

"Do you recognize her voice, Weyrleader?" I muttered, struggling to keep my anger under control.

"By the shards of my dragon's egg!" this reality's G'narish hissed, taking in the import of what he was hearing. "Shaffit! She never could keep a secret, could she?"

"Perhaps you should have a talk with Seska too, before anything happens to Calentia," I sighed, putting the recorder away.

"How did you know about my daughters?" this reality's G'narish demanded, looking ominous again.

"Because the you from my reality has them, as well," I informed him, shaking my head. "The only children you do not have in common are the ones we had together. Ariana, Oriana, Ganellin, Denagger, Xakkari, and Andreas, and as you can probably already tell, I'm pregnant again with fraternal twins."

"But you don't exist in this reality except when you come to visit."

Now it was this reality's G'narish's turn to be awestruck.

"True," I mumbled, "but now our realities have intermeshed because of my screwup a few days ago."

As if to prove my point, my G'narish came striding into the room, stumbling over Eliana's corpse.

"What's going on?" he asked, clearly worried. "Chlorith said you were here."

"A lot!" I said, sighing with relief.

"I can see that," he complained. "Would you kindly give me an explanation?"

Dana gave him the rundown because I had started to shake all over.

"You killed her?!" G'narish demanded, taking me up in his arms. "How were you able to aim?"

"Chlorith's vision," I said, feeling nauseated.

"I think I better take you back home," said G'narish. "You need to recover. You're in shock."

"My Sharra has no one to take her to the other Weyrs to make sure no one there has fire-head," I argued.

"That won't be a job for you," G'narish firmly declared. "You need rest and relaxation. In your terms, you need some TLC."

"I never thought I was capable of something like this," I whispered, trembling all over, "and it scares me to death! I don't ever want to do that again!"

"Hopefully you'll never have to."

"I don't want to have nightmares about it, either."

"I do," he said gently. "We can have them together. I killed Eliana, and I killed Toric. Will you, perhaps, kill Toric, too?"

He was trying to inject some humor into the situation, but it backfired. I turned white as a sheet, shaking uncontrollably.

"Perhaps we shouldn't exercise the prerogative," Dana spoke. "Toric might not become an Abominator in this reality."

"He was the leader of ours after the two Lords Holder were exiled," I muttered, shaking my head. "I wouldn't bank on anything where he's concerned. Toric's pretty ambitious, and he thought that AIVAS would take the right to rule Southern away from him. He's not happy about your hospital, is he?"

"No, he isn't," Dana was forced to agree. "As a matter of fact, he tried to prevent my confirmation as Lady Holder of Robinton Cove on the grounds that such beautiful lands should be his by right."

"See what I mean?" I asked, still shaking in G'narish's arms.

"What does that have to do with AIVAS?" she asked.

"He would probably counsel Toric against conquest," I said. "That facility has a lot in its files about people from all your Federated Sentient Planets who sought conquest and came to sticky ends."

"Like the Nathis," Dana sighed, nodding understanding.

"There were many audiobooks, fictional and nonfictional, about sentients who sought conquest and lost everything," I went on, waving my hands for emphasis. "Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, ... the list goes on and on."

"Don't forget Lord Voldemort," Dana chuckled, grinning slyly. "Or haven't you ever read Harry Potter?"

"Who hasn't?" I exclaimed, smiling as some of the tension began to melt away. "I introduced G'narish to that series, and he hasn't looked back since! I think someone on Pern should start writing their own fictional books. That would give life a new perspective."

"Perhaps you should be the first," Dana suggested, smiling at me

"The two of us together," I fired back, grinning broadly. "Publish it in both realities!"

Dana gave me her hand, and we shook on it.

Chapter 10 – First Flight (Dana's P.O.V.)

"Dana?" Someone shook me, trying to get my attention. "Dana!"

"What?" I stammered, blinking my eyes to get them back in focus. "Where…"

"You're at the Cove Hold teaching hospital," Moreta said, her expressions concerned.

It had been over two months since she and her dragon, Orlith, had been miraculously pulled back from the brink of oblivion and brought, quite by accident, to the teaching hospital we had erected at Robinton Cove. And all thanks to the heretofore unknown dragon ability to use quantum ergokinesis, the ability to move between dimensions. That accident had been the key, bringing them possibly to the only medical facility in our two realities capable of saving their lives.

Not only that, their accidental trans-dimensional visit had also proven key to the resurrection of D'nag, Elli's weyrmate's brother, and his dragon, Claranth. That soul-searing experience saving Darla and Laneth had prepared me for what I'd had to do. The medical equipment both in the teaching hospital and aboard the Yokohama proved instrumental in their accelerated recovery.

In the two months since their arrival, teams of craftsmen from both realities had labored long to build a teaching hospital at Cove Hold in Elli's reality, something that their people had desperately needed. Moreta had even agreed to remain in Elli's reality to run the new hospital. I had come to their new facility to offer instructions to the new healer-riders there. We had been discussing some of the debridement techniques I had used on Darla, Laneth, D'nag, and Claranth, but for some reason, my mind kept wandering off.

"Are you alright?" Moreta asked, offering me a glass of water.

"I… I don't know!" I admitted, shaking my head then taking a sip of water. "My brain's all fogged this morning for some reason!"

"You're not coming down with something, are you?" blue rider D'ren from Elli's reality wondered, touching my forehead with the back of his hand.

"I don't think so," I stammered, staggering a little.

"Maybe you better sit down, teach," green rider Rillen suggested, pulling a stool over for me to sit on. "All that jumping back and forth _between_ realities may be wearing you down."

"That's just it," I said, once more blinking my eyes and shaking my head. "I feel fine, except…"

"Except what?" Moreta wondered, coming closer.

"I keep tasting raw meat!" I complained, waving my hand about. "I had cereal for breakfast this morning, for crying out loud, not raw hamburger!"

"Wait! What did you just say?" Moreta exclaimed, seizing my hand.

Somewhere outside, we heard a queen bellowing.

"By the Egg of Faranth!" Moreta gasped, her eyes flying wide. "Dana, come on!"

She yanked me off the stool, running down the hall as fast as she could with me struggling to keep up with her.

"Have you lost your mind?!" I exclaimed, stumbling as we went.

"Tarnaa is rising!" Moreta shouted, seizing me by the arms. "She's blooding her kill!"

"WHAT?!" I exclaimed, barely keeping my balance as Moreta once more takes off at a run.

"Hurry!" she urged, nearly knocking the hospital door off its hinge as we hurried outside.

The confusion I felt was getting worse, my thoughts harder to focus on. What the hell was going on?!

"Don't let her gorge!" someone yelled in my ear, hands firmly grasping my shoulders.

My mind was in two places. I'm standing there in the open, watching my dragon blood her kills. At the same time, I am my dragon, trying to gorge, being forced to only drink the blood. I roared my defiance, glaring about at the bronzes, their eyes blazing red in the heat of the mating drive. Seeing their eagerness, I gathered myself to leap skyward.

"Fellth!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Then, I am no longer aware of my human self. In a flurry of wings and bodies, the lands around us resounding with the cries of the mating dragons, I'm awing, climbing swiftly higher into the Southern Pern sky, the rutting bronzes in close pursuit.

Higher we climb, the ground below growing more distant. Bronze after bronze, sometimes singularly, others in pairs, try to cut me off… to catch me. I avoid them with almost disdainful ease. Time and again, they try to close the distance, to join with me. But they do not have my years of flying experience in the FSP. They have never seen some of the maneuvers I show them… split-S, Cuban 8, Immelmann, barrel roll, loop. With each escape, the trailing bronze howls with rage, abandoning the pursuit from exhaustion.

Minutes turn into hours, and still the flight goes on. None of the pursuing bronzes seem able to match my maneuverability or skill. Roaring my defiance, I beat my wings faster and harder, climbing away from the last of the pursuing bronzes. One by one, their strength at last spent, the bronzes end their pursuit.

I am angry. I am sad. Here in this alternate reality, he doesn't exist. Back in our timeline, he has no way of knowing how to reach me. I wail forlornly, lost in my loneliness.

Unseen, a shadow passes over me. Suddenly, something slams into me, fouling one wing in the process. Howling in rage, I turn to see who would dare, but in doing so, my other wing becomes fouled. Who is here? How dare they do this to me? Pivoting my head around to get a better view, I feel another's neck wrap around mine, and I find myself staring into the eyes I had thought never to see!

_Fellth?!_

_I am here,_ he says, spreading his wings to check our headlong plunge towards the ground.

Somehow, I manage to do the same, helping to break our plummeting descent. Gently, gingerly, we land, breathing hard from the effort.

_How?_ I manage to gasp, meeting his adoring gaze.

_We heard Dana's cry_, he explains, lovingly nuzzling my face.

_L'trel? He's here, too?_

_Yes,_ Fellth assures me.

Wave after wave of euphoric ecstasy washes over me as we consummate our mating. I have never known such bliss before. It is like Impression but at a different, more personal level. I never want it to end!

Awareness slowly returns. I blink my eyes, trying to get them to focus. The last thing I can remember was being outside, trying to control Tarnaa. Suddenly, I gasp, realizing what had happened. She had risen to mate! What had I told her that time I had helped Wirenth mate with Canth?

_Will it be like that when I mate?_ she had innocently wondered.

_Better_, I had assured her, hugging her fiercely. _Much, much better because we will be together to share it._

Tarnaa had risen to mate! And we had been together to share it!

"You okay?" L'trel asked, leaning into view.

"You're here!" I whispered, trembling all over. "How…"

"Fellth heard you cry out," L'trel chuckled, gently running a fingertip down my cheek. "Even here, across all that time, space, and realities. It was so loud, I thought I was going to go deaf!"

"Where…" I stammered, trying to glance about.

"Not sure," L'trel admitted. "I was so caught up in the mating drive when we got here, I don't remember much. At least it's private. Someone wanted us to be alone."

That's when I realize we're covered by sleeping furs… and neither one of us is wearing a single stitch of clothing, sending a shocking blush flooding all the way to the tips of my ears and down to my trembling toes!

"You okay?" L'trel nervously asks. "If you'd rather I not be here…"

I throw my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, tears pouring down my cheeks, sobs escaping my lips.

"I don't want anyone else," I whisper, trembling as I pull back to look at him.

"Are you sure?" he begs, his eyes filled with uncertainty.

"Mmmm hmmm," I reply, grinning shyly. "I want you to be the one to take my virginity."

"Your…" L'trel begins, then gasps, absolutely bug-eyed as he stares at me. "You… you… you…"

"Just take it, love," I chuckle, hugging him tightly, "before I change my mind!"

Take it he does… lovingly… gently… patiently… perfectly. With each act of love that we engage in, my ecstasy rises, climbing higher and higher. I climax, over and over again, the bliss I feel so intense, I begin to wonder if you could die from too much of a good thing. One particular pleasure spasm is so intense that I actually pass out from it! I think it was because Tarnaa and Fellth had climaxed at the same moment that we did! Whoo! What a ride!

When I come to, L'trel is there, smiling down at me, filling my heart with so much joy that I weep, repeatedly. We make love several more times, eventually too exhausted to continue, and fall asleep, each holding the other.

In the morning, I wake to see his face smiling down at me.

"Sleep well?" he asks, a knowing grin on his face.

"Like no other time in my life," I sighed, snuggling up against his side, his arm around my shoulders. "I have never known such a feeling of completeness before in my life. I am finally the woman I had always dreamt I should be, and you had a hand in making it happen. Thank you!"

"My pleasure!" he replies, planting a hungry kiss right on my equally hungry lips!

We make love a couple more times. Then, reluctantly, we break it off to shower, dress, and go get something to eat.

In hindsight, we probably should've called out for breakfast. The moment we step into the hospital's cafeteria, arm in arm with each other, the place explodes with deafening cheers and thunderous applause.

Moreta herself leads the congratulatory parade, the first to give each of us a heartfelt hug.

"I am so happy for both of you," she says, grinning broadly.

"Oh, my stars, what an experience!" I gasped, giving her a heartfelt hug. "If you hadn't been there…"

"Pshaw!" Moreta scoffed, dismissing my concern with a wave of her hand. "You and your friends saved my life and that of Orlith. It was the least I could do."

"There's only one small problem," I muttered, wringing my hands.

"Problem?" P'ter, bronze Dollarth's rider asked.

"Where the hell is she going to clutch?" I wondered, frantically looking about. "This facility isn't equipped for that!"

Moreta burst out laughing. "You leave that to us, Craftmaster! We'll figure something out!"

Chapter 11 - A Startling New Development (Elli's P.O.V.)

"Tarnaa can clutch at Honshu,"" I told Dana. "We'll get you between realities if you must go back to your hospital."

"Thank you for the offer," Dana said, smiling. "I just hope she doesn't clutch too soon. She's very egg-heavy."

"I'll direct you to the Hatching Grounds," I said happily. "I think Tarnaa's already found her way there."

It had been three months since the mating flight, so Tarnaa was ready to clutch any day now. She hovered above the sand for a moment, hissed, then laid her first egg. It was a small one, so we knew it'd be a blue or green. Then another came, then another! Chlorith's and Rollith's eggs were already on the Hatching Grounds, but they held no compunction about Tarnaa clutching there as well. Only one problem remained. Would Tarnaa always clutch here at Honshu in this dimension, or would she clutch next time at Robinton Cove in her own? Dragons usually clutched in the same place all the time, unless they were moved to another Weyr.

During that time, G'narish had stepped down as Weyrleader. He could not abide doing the job without his passive senior Weyrwoman supporting him through thick and thin. Unlike my G'narish, he had no one to turn to for comfort. His grief only became worse with time. He withdrew from people. He did not even fight Thread anymore.

I could tell Dana was concerned about him. He had relocated to Robinton Cove as a psychological patient. Pern didn't have many of those, but he was one of them now, and Dana was flummoxed. Pern had no suitable chemicals to make meds that might treat depression, so we had to deal with the problem therapeutically. I remembered the basket case I'd been when I'd been forced to withdraw from my meds because they didn't have the chemicals to replicate them. I was thinking of starting my own mental hospital at Honshu Weyrhold, so that mental-health patients could get the therapy they needed — if not the medicine. I already considered my G'narish as a patient because of his PTSD, which had not gone away with D'nag's full recovery. It'd taken five months of countless skin grafting, but he had pulled through it miraculously. Now they both had PTSD, because Threadfall gave them both flashbacks. G'narish still turned to me, and D'nag turned to Tiffany, who was never good at comforting people and was petrified that he might black out and choke her to death or something.

"He was fighting Thread that day, not people!" I shouted at her in frustration. "Just hold him, reassure him. It's not like our role plays where the mentally Ill person tries to kill you. He moves his hands like that because they're being scored to death in his flashbacks. Wouldn't you be traumatized after an experience like that?"

Tarnaa laid another egg and this one was large, glowing brightly on its resting place.

"She laid a queen!" I cried. "How come you didn't lay one this time around, Chlorith?"

Chlorith began to keen.

_I've lain queens before,_ she whined plaintively. _I've lain at least one queen in every clutch I've had. Now I can't please you._

"There, now, Chlori," I smiled, patting her on the back. "Honshu has enough queens. I was just giving you a hard time. Don't cry, my darling golden sweetie-pie! I love you so much! I'm very proud of you!"

_I laid 32 eggs in my clutch,_ Chlorith informed me, her keening subsiding. _Rollith clutched 32 eggs, but, sadly, no queen._

"We still need girls for the green eggs," I told her. "Now that Lessa's allowed girls to Impress greens, it has become standard practice in all the Weyrs of Pern. Even the Oldtimers do it, and in both realities."

_Tarnaa's laying another one. This one is huge! She's having trouble with it. Should we perform a c-section?_

"I was wondering about that myself," Dana responded to Chlorith's suggestion. "Think we should operate on her?"

"Let her try it herself," I advised her. "The same thing happened to Chlorith. She produced twin queens one Clutching. That's how Ari and Ori Impressed so young. They weren't found on Search. That Impression Day, they were sitting in the front of the tiers we erected when the two queens waddled right up to them, Ari pairing with Aureath, and Ori pairing with Aurelith! I don't know who was more surprised… Chlorith, the twins, or me!"

"What was that old Earth saying… a Maalox moment?" Dana chuckled.

"Rollith produced twin queens, as well" I said, continuing my story. "Miroirth and Zareth clutched twin bronzes. One of the sets was exiled because the riders turned into sheer bastards, almost as if some of the abusive Oldtimers had been somehow reborn. That's how little Lyni came to be our foster child. She was raped repeatedly by both of them. They kidnapped her from Lemos Hold and brought her to Benden. The other pair went to A'dan and M'chael. Like Ari and Ori, they were too young to Impress, but the dragons chose them anyway, so there was really very little we could do about it."

"She's laboring," Dana muttered, clearly worried about her golden lifemate. "She can't do it."

"Give her time," I assured her, giving her trembling hand a reassuring squeeze. "She'll be able to do it soon. Just give her some time."

"I need Ryeena," Dana moaned, on the verge of tears. "I'm going to have to do surgery on my own dragon!"

"No, you won't," I consoled her. "You'll just have to give her some time. Be patient. She'll pull through."

Unfortunately, three hours later, in spite of my assurances, Tarnaa was still struggling to lay the enormous egg. We had no choice but to put her to sleep and remove the rest of the clutch by hand.

_Wimp_, Chlorith teased her. _I did it just fine, and you can't?_

_Oh, do be quiet, will you?_ Tarnaa complained just before Dana inserted the IV into her wing.

"I'm here, Dana!" Ryeena called out from astride her Sylene as they circled in to land. "What can I do?"

"I can't do this!" Dana wept, her otherwise steady hands inextricably trembling. "I could kill my dragon!"

"It's just a c-section," I said in my finest soothing voice. "You won't kill her; it's a routine procedure."

"But it's never been done on a dragon!" Dana sobbed. "I can't do this!"

"I'll do it," Ryeena offered, taking Dana's hand. "Trade places with me. You administer the anesthesia, and I'll do the procedure."

"I'll clamp," I offered. "Just show me where."

With that, in short order, the procedure was done. It was Ryeena's first ever surgery, but she pulled it off nicely. There were 60 eggs in the clutch, including two impossibly large ones!

"Shards! No wonder she had trouble laying them!" I whispered, awestruck. "She had two of them in there! One of them must've been blocking the other."

"There was a huge sac blocking the eggs from coming out," Ryeena reported. "I think that might've been a deformed egg. Given its condition, there really was no way it was going to survive."

"Poor dragon!" I sympathized, giving Dana my best heartfelt hug for the loss.

"Thank you," she whispered, returning the hug.

"But enough of this pity party," I said, smiling as I did. "All we have to do now is suture the wound closed and Tarnaa will be fit again. She just can't fly for two Sevendays. You can teleport _between_ without the help of a dragon, so you can go back-and-forth from here to the hospital. You did it once before so you can do it again. Don't worry, sweetheart. Tarnaa will be all right. See? She's coming out of the anesthesia. She'll be fit again before her clutch hatches."

I swept her up in a big bear hug.

"I can't leave her!" Dana sobbed hysterically.

"It's all right. You can sleep here tonight, but she'll want you to go so she can watch over her first clutch."

Dana ended up sleeping in my weyr with me that night for fear Tarnaa need something. She awoke several times that night, needing an itch oiled. The sutures were the worst. Dana was out of bed like a shot every time Tarnaa woke her. It got kind of annoying for me, because I heard Tarnaa, too, and I couldn't sleep for fear she'd wake up and Dana wouldn't. But my fears were groundless. Dana was up every time her dragon called her.

Dana ended up staying with me the whole two Sevendays so that she could administer to Tarnaa's itchy sutures. She barely took care of herself during all that time; her only concern was for her dragon. Finally, when Tarnaa lifted off the ground to show she could fly again, Dana took her leave of us to return to the hospital. I could tell she was still very anxious about Tarnaa, but she went anyway because of her responsibilities in that other reality. She did, however, ask me to keep watch over Tarnaa's clutch for her, which I gladly agreed to do.

Chlorith helped me out as she also had a clutch on the Hatching Ground, but hers hatched before Tarnaa's. Honshu's Hatching turnouts were second only to Benden Weyr's. But people were confused as to why only 64 of the eggs were Hatching right now.

"Tarnaa's clutch isn't ready," I explained to those who asked. "She clutched a week after Chlorith and Rollith."

Dana was present at both Hatchings, but she was much more anxious with Tarnaa's than those from my reality. One of the larger eggs turned out to be a queen egg, so Tarnaa had clutched three queens in her batch of 60 eggs. We had more girls than boys on the Hatching Grounds for Tarnaa's clutch because of the greens that would most certainly be among the eggs.

Dana was a basket case. No one could reassure her until the Eggs had Hatched. L'trel held her the entire time she wept out of nerves, and I was a basket case as well because I could do nothing to help her. I knew why she was a basket case. The eggs had been taken out of Tarnaa's abdomen. She had not lain most of them. Would there be any damage to them?

When the first egg began to rock, she breathed a sigh of relief, then tensed up right away because this was only the first one, and it was one of the eggs that had been lain.

"Dana, seriously, it's okay," I said reassuringly. "This happens to human babies all the time on Earth. Lord Jaxom was born via C-section. If I remember correctly, so was F'lessan. That was before they knew about surgery from AIVAS. Wouldn't it be the same for dragon eggs?"

"Not necessarily," Dana snapped, nearly as broody as her dragon.

"Oh!" she exclaimed as one of the eggs she had pulled out of Tarnaa started rocking.

_I told you they'd be all right_, Tarnaa assured her rider. _There'd have been more damage if you had let me lay them._

The first egg cracked right down the middle. As I had predicted, it was a blue. It made a beeline toward a black-haired boy with rosy cheeks. Candidates had been brought in from both realities to give the new dragonets more of a choice deciding who they wanted. This boy was from Dana's reality and had been trained up in the Healer Hall. He would be an excellent addition to Dana's teaching hospital, or perhaps even Moreta's.

The second egg cracked, again one which had been lain. A green dragonet emerged from the shell, creeling with hunger, searching for a candidate. A second egg taken from Tarnaa via c-section cracked, and a bronze dragonet emerged from the sack. As if that wasn't enough, the first queen egg literally shattered, leaving its inmate sprawled out on the sand. Cassandria, who had been selected as a candidate, moved to assist the little dragonet to her feet and froze as Impression was made. She wasn't as young as Ariana and Oriana, but she was still young enough for me to be worried that she wouldn't have the sense of responsibility necessary to take care of her dragon. Still, Ori and Ari had surprised me on that count. Maybe, Cassandria would, too.

"Her name is Hamith!" she cried jubilantly, throwing her arms around her dragonet's shoulders.

My G'narish burst into tears. Poor Cassandria had been so crushed when neither Chlorith nor Rollith had laid a queen egg this time around. Now, finally, after all the pain of the past, his daughter had gotten her life-long wish. I held G'narish to me, basking in his pure joy. It was almost like he had Impressed all over again.

He had missed Seska's and Calentia's Impressions because he had been arguing with Danala about taking Cassandria in the first place. But once he'd accepted her, he never looked back. She was him in female miniature… her long, silky jet-black hair tied in a bun, and her deep-set, almond-shaped, black eyes expressive. The shape of her long nose was graceful and beautiful, just like her father's. They marked them out as stereotypical citizens of Igen heritage. Seska had looked the same way, while Calentia looked exactly like her mother, tall and slim, with platinum-blond hair and deep, sky-blue eyes, with a straight, short nose. The twins looked exactly like me, oval face, medium brown hair, and sky-blue eyes with early-spring green in the middle. The triplets and Andreas looked exactly like their father. I had a feeling once my new twins were born that the boy would look like his daddy and the girl would look exactly like me.

"Elli! The queen egg!" Dana was tugging on my shirtsleeve. "It's rocking, and so is the other one!"

Another hush fell over all the guests as the queen egg split open, followed quickly by a collective gasp of disbelief as the shattered egg disgorged not one but two little queens! Both appeared to be in perfect health, and both made beelines for the daughters of Dana's G'narish. My G'narish sighed, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. If Chlorith or Rollith had clutched twin queens, Seska would still be alive, because she wouldn't have gone after her sister that fateful day.

"Her name is Carth!" Seska jubilantly exclaimed.

"Her name is Zareth!" Calentia shouted over Seska.

She was a much gentler soul than Seska, even in Dana's dimension, but Impression had made her so jubilant that she couldn't help but shout.

Now it was Dana's G'narish's turn to cry. He had been brought along, since both his children had been found on Search, but he had just sat there, eyes downcast, deep in grief over Nadira's loss. He really needed a new weyrmate, I thought. No one would replace Nadira, but a new weyrmate could comfort him in a way that no one else could. However, I was uncertain if he was ready for it yet. After all, it had taken me and my G'narish a whole year to mate.

As quickly as the Hatching had begun, it ended. Sadly, one little green had not Impressed, and she was mewling piteously, searching desperately for the one she wanted. She had searched every candidate on the grounds, but her rider wasn't there. She tried climbing up the tiers but found no one there that she wanted. With a hideous, heart-rending shriek, she leaped skyward, disappearing _between_.

The whole crowd went silent as the dragons began to keen. Dana burst into tears. I knew that she, like myself, had felt the little mind wink out. There were records, we all knew, but the phenomenon was so rare that no one had thought it might happen here.

"That was the first green to hatch," Dana sobbed inconsolably.

L'trel put his arms around her comfortingly, but she pushed him away and turned to me. I knew exactly why, too… L'trel couldn't speak to all dragons the way we could.

"I'm here, honey," I said gently. "Perhaps the right person will come along and rescue her the way you rescued Wirenth. Not everyone from your hospital came to the Hatching, did they?"

All Dana could do was silently shake her head.

"Then, maybe the right Weyrfolk will be waiting for her there," I suggested, giving her my best comforting smile. "Do like you did for Wirenth. Go back there and call her from _between_, for she is between realities now."

Dana's tears stopped as if somebody had just shut off a faucet.

"I have to be at the feast," she muttered, uncertain what to do.

"Then, just time it!" I said in a duh voice. "You called Wirenth forward in time, didn't you?"

Silently, Dana nodded.

"Then do that!" I encouraged her. "How hard can it be? You have Weyrfolk at your hospital who'd love to Impress. That'll just add to your healing staff. This isn't the tragedy it appears to be. With your unique abilities, everything will be okay, because you've done this before."

"I haven't seen it in a dream," Dana protested.

"Do you have to see everything in dreams?" I cried in frustration. "Just do it! Those dreams were just setting you up for a career in search and rescue here on Pern!"

I couldn't see it, but I knew Dana smiled as she raised her head from my shoulder.

"Wait till the feast is over, then return to your hospital and call her from there." I told her.

"I'll. do it!" she said, smiling broadly.

Chapter 12 – Rill To The Rescue (Dana's P.O.V.)

It was an interesting idea, I had to admit. Watching that green dragonet, the first of Tarnaa's children to hatch, take itself _between_ because her rider wasn't among the candidates, broke my heart.

It had been a whirlwind time for the two of us… our first mating flight as dragon and rider. An exquisitely beautiful experience… from both perspectives. I couldn't help wondering if other dragonriders experienced that duality of consciousness that Tarnaa and I shared, seeing the mating first through her eyes, then sharing with her my own joining with L'trel. I hoped they did. It had been so beautiful!

Elli's suggestion that I go back to my own reality to rescue Tarnaa's child was not without merit. True, I had called Wirenth from _between_, bringing her forward in time to where I could use my surgical skills to save her life. But that had only occurred because all of the dragons had been singing along with me during 'Keymon's Song'. If that was the key, we'd have to do it again, using the power of the dragonsong to open a momentary temporal rift. That first time, I'd been alerted to the possibility of it happening because of the prescient dreams I'd had. But, so far, I hadn't been forewarned… no visions yet. Still, deep in my heart, I knew I had to try.

Back in Elli's reality, I hung around until the Hatching Day feast was winding down, threw on my spacesuit and helmet… didn't want to take a chance that our joining, L'trel and I, had actually got me pregnant… made my apologies to the hosts at Moreta's teaching hospital, then the two of us took to the skies, gaining significant wing room as I solidified my image of where we needed to jump to, and Tarnaa took us both _between._

There was plenty of activity at Robinton Cove as we returned to our own reality, Tarnaa bugling a greeting to the other healer-riders and their dragons as we circled to land. By the time we backwinged to a landing, a sizeable crowd, nearly half the staff at the hospital, was there applauding and cheering like mad!

"Heard the news!" D'nag shouted, the first to reach us as I dismounted. "Hell of a clutch!"

"How are you fairing?" I wondered, giving him a quick once over.

"Scarred, to be sure," he chuckled, flexing an arm, "but grateful to be alive… and once more whole. I owe you, Dana."

"One of Tarnaa's hatchlings… a green…" I quietly spoke, my heart aching with the recalled memory, "went _between_ during the Hatching."

"Shells!" D'nag cursed, his own expression pained.

"I haven't given up hope yet," I told him, my expression serious. "Thanks to my inheritance from Wirenth, I gained the ability to hear dragons _between_ even when I'm not."

"Seriously?!" D'nag gasped, mouth agape.

I nodded. "Elli suggested I try to recreate the conditions that allowed me to call Wirenth from _between_. I think she believes I can do the same thing for Tarnaa's lost child as I did for Wirenth."

M'rice whistled in astonishment. "I'd heard that story. I still find it hard to believe!"

"We'll need assistance from the Harper Hall, too," I explained. "I was singing 'Keymon's Song' the day of that incident. If we can precisely recreate the conditions on that day, we might just be able to reach the lost green… and save her life. G'rtan!"

"On my way!" he called out, heading off to his dragon.

"Teela!"

"Right here," she called out, moving forward through the crowd.

"Gather as many non-riders as you can find," I ordered, surveying the staff that had assembled. "White tunics for all of them."

"Tunics?!" she gasped.

"One of Tarnaa's hatchlings didn't Impress," I managed to say, my voice betraying the pain I felt. "She jumped _between._ We're going to attempt to repeat what I did calling Wirenth from _between_. If we can, then we'll need all the candidates we can find in hopes she finds one suitable to Impress."

"You got it," Teela, green Vernath's rider, acknowledged, heading off.

"Dana!" Ryeena exclaimed, bursting through the throng to throw her arms around my neck in a fierce hug. Then, pulling back to gaze at my face, she asked, "Tarnaa rose?"

I nodded. "Fellth flew her."

"Dana, that's wonderful!" Ryeena cheered, giving me another hug. "You and L'trel?"

I blushed a shocking crimson, a shy grin on my face as I nodded.

"Come on," she urged, taking me by the elbow. "Let's get you checked out to be sure everything is alright."

More cheers and applause followed me as Ryeena led the way back into the hospital. As I entered the med bay area, I felt a curious disturbance at the edge of my consciousness. I'd felt it once before… the day Ryeena and Sylene had Impressed.

"Here you go, Ryeena," a young girl spoke, handing my assistant a scan pad.

Briefly, our eyes met before she turned away. In that brief contact, I suddenly realized she was the source of the disturbance I was feeling.

The day Ryeena and Sylene had found each other, I'd used one of the techniques my Academy psionics instructor had tried to show me… sampling the aura of one being in an attempt to locate a matching one in another being. The aura Tarnaa's green hatchling had been broadcasting still resonated in my soul.

"Just a minute," I called to the girl, beckoning her to come back over.

Hesitantly, she returned, standing slightly behind Ryeena. I closed my eyes, reaching out with my mind, quietly sampling her aura.

"Dana? What's wrong?" Ryeena wondered, pausing in her examination of me.

"Remember that day I discovered that you and Sylene were kindred spirits?" I asked, my eyes still closed.

"I remember it scared the hell out of me when you first told me," she chuckled, recalling. "But I wouldn't change a thing about the outcome."

"Just before Tarnaa's green hatchling jumped _between_," I explained, slowly opening my eyes, my gaze fixed squarely on the girl, "I got a strong impression of her aura. What none of us realized is that her lifemate was back here… in this reality."

"Me?!" the girl gasped, suddenly turning pale.

_She is the one?_ Tarnaa silently asked, clearly excited.

The girl's eyes flicked briefly in the direction of my dragon before returning to me.

"You heard that, didn't you?" I asked, my smile slowly growing.

Frantically, the girl glanced about as if seeking some means to escape.

"Rill, what's wrong?" Ryeena begged, lightly touching the terrified girl's arm.

"Please, don't hurt me!" she wept, slowly backing away, tears pouring down her face. "I didn't mean to!"

"Your name's Rill?" I inquired; my curiosity aroused. "From Ruatha Hold, by any chance?"

Rill turned white as a sheet; her eyes enormous in her frightened face.

"Rill, look at me," I calmly spoke, not moving from where I was seated.

Sobbing, trembling, she did.

"You can speak to dragons, can't you?"

Slowly, sniffling back some of her tears, Rill nodded.

"Another well-known Rill came from Ruatha Hold," I commented, eyeing the girl closely.

"Lady Nerilka," Rill acknowledged, "wife of Lord Alessan of Ruatha Hold…"

"Back in the 6th Pass," Ryeena remarked, coming up beside Rill. "She was one of those who helped overcome the pandemic that swept Pern back then."

"I was named after her," Rill admitted, sniffling back a few more tears as she smiled at Ryeena. "My Mama says we're her direct descendants."

"How long have you been able to speak to dragons?" I asked, hands folded serenely in my lap.

"Almost as long as I can remember," Rill admitted, finally taking a seat on a stool Ryeena pulled over for her.

"Were you ever Searched?" I wondered.

Rill shook her head. "Dragonriders never visit our little hold. It's pretty isolated up in the mountains northwest of Ruatha."

"Given your reaction, Rill," I said, smiling and nodding my understanding, "I've a feeling you've had a rough time of it… where your special gift is concerned."

Head hung, eyes closed, Rill said, "No one believed me. Even my parents. The kids I grew up with teased me about it all the time."

Looking straight at me, "And then, I heard the story about how your friend was killed and how you nearly died just because you were with him."

"A different time, a different place, Rill," I assured her, slowly rising to my feet.

Taking her hands in mine, I helped her stand.

"I've learned that Pern is different, Rill," I told her, giving her hands a gentle squeeze. "Our gifts… the ability to hear all dragons is both rare… and highly prized by the people of Pern. Your only misfortune was not being found on Search. If you had, you would've already been in a Weyr somewhere."

"But what do I do now?" Rill wondered, glancing in Tarnaa's direction outside. "What did she mean I'm the one?"

"Tarnaa clutched in Elli's reality," I explained. "Among the hatchlings was a green dragonet, the first to hatch. But her lifemate wasn't among the candidates there, so she went _between_."

Rill gasped, her eyes once more dwarfing her face.

"Me?!" she gasped, clearly disbelieving. "You think I was to be her rider?!"

"Dana seems blessed with the rare ability to sense the auras of both humans and dragons," Ryeena explained, laying a comforting hand on Rill's shoulder. "Every time I've seen her use that gift, dragon and rider have found each other… like me and Sylene."

"But what can we do now?" Rill sobbed. "She's gone _between_!"

"You've heard the story of Wirenth?" I asked, meeting her gaze.

Rill nodded.

"We're going to try and recreate the circumstances of that event," I explained. "If we can, we may be able to bridge the temporal and dimensional gap and call the green from _between_, bringing her here to you."

"What if she doesn't want me?" Rill wailed, more tears falling.

"Dana's been spot-on with her aura sense," Ryeena assured her, nodding to me. "If she says that green matches your aura, I believe it."

Rill glanced from Ryeena back to me, finally nodding. "How can I help?"

Getting the dragons together was no challenge. They arranged themselves along the edge of the clearing we'd chosen for the performance.

"We brought the same musicians that were there for Wirenth," Domick assured me, gesturing at the platform where the choral group and musicians had arranged themselves. "G'rtan was pretty insistent on that score." Laying a gentle hand on my shoulder, he asked, "Will it work?"

"We have to try, Domick," I replied, my expression stone serious.

"We'll do our best, Dana," he assured me, moving to the director's platform.

"Dana?" It was Rill, watching from a short distance away. "Good luck."

Nodding my thanks, I mounted the platform to assume my position.

The entire staff of the hospital, holders and riders alike, were arranged around the hastily erected stage. White tunicked candidates were off to one side, their expressions all anxious. With one final check of the preparations, I nodded to Domick.

Once more, the lilting strains of 'Keymon's Song' filled the air. Once again, I drew a breath, recalling everything that Shonagar had taught me, and began to sing. Fire lizards were the first to add their voices to the music, triggering the dreamlike state the song possessed. Then, the dragons joined in, raising the effect several levels.

I concentrated on the song, focusing my entire being into it. Just as the song was ending, I heard it… the unmistakable voice of the green hatchling!

_Lifemate!_ it wailed forlornly, stabbing a spear of ice through my heart.

"Tarnaa!" I shouted, leaping off the stage, hitting the ground at a run.

"Rill!" I shouted again, seizing her hand and dragging her along as I ran to my dragon.

I went up first, lifting Rill effortlessly into place behind me. Quickly belting the two of us into Tarnaa's harness, I commanded, "Tarnaa, go!"

A quick spring skyward, a single beat of her wings, and the three of us vanished _between_!

_Lifemate! _we three soundlessly heard in our minds, the green's fear and desolation unmistakable.

_Little one? _Rill silently called.

_Lifemate?!_ the dragonet exclaimed.

_Follow us, little one,_ Rill encouraged the hatchling. _We'll take you home!_

_Lifemate! _the little dragon sobbed.

Seemingly a heartbeat after we had vanished _between,_ Tarnaa, Rill, and I reemerged above the stage platform on the hospital grounds of Robinton Cove. And we didn't come alone. Several bronzes leaped skyward on our return, helping Tarnaa's first child to safely land a short distance away.

The moment Rill and I touched down aboard Tarnaa, she was out of her riding belt, sliding down my dragon's side before racing over to where the green had come to rest. The bronzes moved off, giving her room. Then, Rill hesitated, unsure of herself as the green slowly opened her eyes and turned her way.

_Lifemate! _the little green dragon trilled happily, summoning what strength she had left to crawl towards Rill, struggling to close the distance between them.

Rill burst into tears, dashing over to the green, scooping her up into her arms, hugging her tightly.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed, hugging the green tightly. "I'm so sorry!"

_Lifemate!_ the green crooned, her eyes shading to a contented blue-green color.

I quickly dismounted, giving my own lifemate a grateful hug before hurrying over to where the new dragon pair were resting.

"By the Egg of Faranth!" Ryeena whispered, a bowl of meat clutched in her arms. "It worked!"

Then, remembering what she was carrying, Ryeena set the bowl of meat down where Rill could reach it.

Tears of joy falling from her beaming face, Rill took the little green's head between her hands, peering into the swirling luminescent eyes of her dragon. "Her name is Rilleth!"

Chuckling as I patted Rill on the shoulder, I said, "Watch out, Pern! The Rills are coming!"

Laughing, crying, Rill scooped up the first handful of meat and fed her dragon.

Tarnaa came up behind me, rumbling with love for her first child, nuzzling me with her thanks. Smiling tenderly, I gave my golden heart a warm hug in return.

Against astronomical odds, we had managed to pull off the impossible… rescuing Rilleth from the cold oblivion of _between_. Basking in the joy of the moment, we never suspected that the new dragon and rider were destined to play a pivotal role in the future of both our realities.

Chapter 13 - Recalled to Life (Elli's P.O.V.)

Rill's rescue of her life mate inspired me to try something new — something unheard-of in my reality, but which had happened in Dana's, slightly differently from my plans.

Dana had done it with a rendition of 'Keymon's Song', but my idea was even better, especially after what happened the day after Rilleth's rescue. I was getting very pregnant by that time, but I still risked a jump _between_ to Dana's reality with Brekke, telling her that she could get instruction from Dana in the matter of surgery and advanced medicine. I had vowed to myself that I'd never do it, but I had talked long and hard with F'nor, F'lar, and Lessa during the Hatching Feast, and they had all agreed that if it had been done in another reality, it should also be done in this one. They might not have agreed with the way I planned to do it, however, so I didn't tell them my exact plan. They had all agreed that another long-standing tradition could be broken in the process.

Brekke climbed onto Chlorith's back with no clue of my clever plan. We made the jump _between_ and circled to land. Dana's Brekke was waiting for us. She had a deep bond with her other self and knew the torture my Brekke was experiencing every night in her dreams. No one else knew why she cried herself to sleep and then awoke in a cold sweat, screaming for her lost lifemate.

Dana's Brekke met us at the door of the hospital. Instead of leading my Brekke inside as she had planned, she led her outside to the Queens' ledge. There, drowsing contentedly, was Wirenth, completely healed. Even her eye was restored to normal, though there was a big scar around the lids.

"Wirenth!" Brekke screamed, going into a frenzy. Sobbing uncontrollably, she collapsed to the ground, wailing, "I want my dragon! I want my dragon!"

"Brekke, you can have your dragon again," Dana's Brekke said gently. "That's why you're here. It's up to you to rescue her. She's haunted your nightmares ever since the seventh Turn when she went _between_. That's her, calling out to you to rescue her. All you have to do is answer and send the image of the hospital to her. She'll have to stay here for a while to heal from the wounds Prideth gave her, but once she's healed, she can come back to you. And, F'lar and Lessa gave the okay for Canth to try and fly her."

"But… how do I do it?" my Brekke demanded, grief slowly transforming to hopeful excitement.

"Next time you hear her call you, answer her," Dana's Brekke instructed her. "Send her the image of the hospital here at Robinton Cove, and she should be able to come. She's very weak, though. She will need to be seen to as soon as she lands, and you should be the one to do it. Dana rescued her the first time, but Elli believes it should be the rider's responsibility to rescue her own dragon. Dana did it without my knowledge, but I sensed her the minute she landed. I couldn't hear her _between_ the way you can."

Brekke's candid green eyes suddenly became unfocused. I heard what she was hearing… a forlorn dragon calling through the temporal rift.

"I'm here, my heart!" my Brekke screamed aloud as well as telepathically. "Come to me, my precious love! You'll be healed as you should've been 28 Turns ago!"

_I see the image, but where is it?_ my Brekke's Wirenth inquired quizzically. _It doesn't seem like anywhere we have been before._

"It's farther South than you've been before. A lot has happened since you ..."

Brekke never got to finish the sentence. Suddenly, there was a flutter of broken wings as Wirenth crashed to the ground squarely in front of her. Dana's Brekke and I helped my Brekke lead her life mate into the hospital. This was where the flaw in my plan was realized. I hadn't told anyone in this reality, not even Dana, what I had planned to do. When they saw us laboring to guide the injured dragon into the unit kept specifically for that purpose, they gasped and shrieked. Hearing the commotion, Dana ran into the room.

"Elli, what by the Fire Falls of Firlea have you done?"

"Only what you did," I countered, "and Brekke did it, not me."

"And you didn't think to consult us?" Dana yelled in anger. "What if we didn't have a bay ready for her?"

"I'm sorry, Dana, I should've asked you first," I apologized, thoroughly contrite. "I thought to bring her here because you're still more advanced than we are. I don't think she would've survived if we had brought her to Moreta's hospital."

"You're right about that, but I don't feel like going through that seven months all over again!" Dana screamed.

"You have no open wounds now, do you?" I cried, thinking I had lost a lifelong friend with my mistake.

Dana paused a moment, considering her response.

"Well, you're right about that," she conceded. "I don't have any open wounds… this time around." Sighing, some of her anger dissipating as she did, she added, "Jesus, Elli, you could've warned me."

Glancing over at the wounded Wirenth from my reality, she remarked, "Still, we're better prepared this time around to handle this, and we could use the spacesuits as isolation garments to prevent blood contamination."

"You're not doing them," I countered, finding confidence again in Chlorith's touch. "You're directing Brekke."

"Which one?" Dana asked, a wry grin on her face.

"My Brekke," I said with growing confidence. "She works in our hospital as a nurse because she doesn't have surgical knowledge. I was hoping either you or your Brekke could teach her like you're teaching Moreta."

Chuckling, Dana gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, saying, "That's what the teaching hospital's for, isn't it?"

They got to work right away, first giving Wirenth an IV full of fellis juice, then suturing the wounds and mending the facets of her wounded eye.

"Keep your mouth closed, Brekke," Dana cautioned her. "You don't want to swallow any ichor, and there's a lot of that around."

"Am I doing the right thing?" Brekke asked repeatedly as she sutured, grafted, and otherwise mended injured hide and tissue.

When it came to repairing the broken wing, Brekke blanched.

"All you have to do is set the bones, Brekke," Dana said compassionately. "Relax. You're doing fine!"

Under Dana's supervision, Brekke did an excellent job. Step by step, Wirenth's wounds were mended, and plugs were inserted to stop the bleeding. By the time they were done, the floor was covered in dragon blood. As I had done nothing else during the procedure but stand back, watch, and annoy them with my constant questions, I was told to mop up the mess. I forbore to comment that I was no good at mopping. I usually just smeared the mess around the floor and made it worse. However, Dana informed me that I had done a good job this time and that I got all the ichor off the floor.

Exhausted from nearly two hours of mopping, and very pregnant, I asked if I could just rest a moment. Then a terrible cramp seized my body.

"Uh-oh!" I said nervously.

"What do you mean 'uh-oh'?" asked Dana.

"Sharp pain ... cramp ... Can't breathe!"

"Yeah, that's a definite 'uh-oh'," Dana confirmed, recognizing the onset of labor. "I'll call Gyarmath. G'narish should be there for this."

"Most fathers stay out of the way when there's a birth," my Brekke said.

"Not G'narish," I gasped, in the throes of yet another contraction.

I'd had them all the time I was mopping, and foolishly chose to ignore them. Now they were intense and very close together. I could no longer move for the pain. I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to see G'narish before his son and daughter were born. He would be devastated if he wasn't there for the delivery.

_He comes_, Chlorith informed me. _He has timed it. He lands._

"G'narish!" I screamed as yet another contraction engulfed me.

"Lie down," Dana commanded me, pressing her hand down on my chest as she ran her scan pad over me.

"One of the babies is breech," she said in a concerned tone. "We might have to do a c-section."

"Uh-uh, no way, Jose, not happening, nada!" I shouted through the pain. "I had a C-section with Raeana, because she couldn't tolerate the intensity of the contractions. Her heart rate dropped by half its normal rate every time I contracted, so they took her by C-section. I was awake during the delivery, but they gave me Demerol in case the epidural wore off in the middle of it, and I fell asleep as soon as I heard the first cry. I couldn't do a damn thing for her except bottle feed her when I wanted to nurse, but she got her first meal when I was still sacked out. That's why I forced them to let me deliver vaginally for all the rest of my children, and this is no exception! I will deliver vaginally or not at all!"

On the heels of my decree, G'narish strode into the room, gave the scan pad one horrified look, and burst into tears. I didn't know he'd looked at the scan pad, so I assumed they were happy tears because I was in labor.

"I know, right?" I said, turning on my side so I could face him. "It's happening tonight! You can name our son anything you want, but I'm naming our daughter after her maternal grandmothers! I wanted to name the twins Meaghan and Ophelia after Tiffany and my role play characters, but you liked Ariana so much that I conceded to you, but now, it's my turn! I'm naming her Linda Marie, and that's it. Final answer!"

"Elli, one of the babies is breech!" G'narish sobbed inconsolably. "It's contorted in a weird position. There's no way in hell we can get it out naturally! There could be permanent damage."

"Damage, schmamage!" I said cheerfully. "They're coming out naturally, and that's final!"

With that, I began to push, even though my water hadn't broken yet. I knew it was going to break soon, so I thought I'd give it a head start.

"No, don't do that, Elli," Dana commanded authoritatively. "You could suffer an aneurysm."

Just then, my water broke all over the bed.

"Shit!" I cursed. "I peed myself!"

"Elli, that's not water!" Dana exclaimed, her voice shaking with anxiety. "That's blood! One of the babies ripped the placenta!"

"There's two placentas in this case," I said cheerfully.

"You're going to have to have a C-section, Elli," Dana argued. "You have a condition known as Placenta Previa. If it was just a marginal PP, you could deliver normally. Unfortunately, the scan pad is showing a partial PP, plus the uncontrolled bleeding means only one choice… delivery by C-section. You can stay awake, and I won't give you Demerol, either. Demerol is over 4000 Turns old. We don't use it in the FSP anymore."

"Then what do you use?" I demanded, angry at both of them for suggesting that I do it the easy way, "and do you have it on Pern?"

"I brought some with me, and they're working on manufacturing more," Dana calmly replied. "You'll be numb, but you'll be awake through the whole thing."

"I guess G'narish will have to change diapers for two weeks while I recuperate." I said resignedly.

"You won't even have restrictions that long with the sutures I'm planning on using," Dana chuckled, relaxing now that I was going to play ball.

_It is better for the babies_, my life mate said in a soothing tone. _It is better that they be brought out this way. With the amount of blood you've already lost, you would most assuredly die if you tried to push them out naturally._

Chlorith's words were the last straw. I burst into tears.

"Why are you weeping, Elli?" asked Dana, pressing a cold spray on my left arm.

"I don't want to do this!" I sobbed as I felt the numbness spread all over my torso. "I want to be a mother to my babies!"

"You are a mother, Elli," Dana spoke, gently stroking my hair. "Only a mother can become pregnant and carry children. Nothing will change that fact, not even how they come into the world. Besides, you're a mother to Raeana."

"That didn't start until she was about 11," I sobbed, trying to control the flood of tears. "She never wanted me unless I was already busy doing something else! She was always up my ex's ass day in, day out! The first time I ever comforted her was when she was ten, and she was scared her grandpa was going to die because he was in the emergency room. Every other time she cried, my ex comforted her. Whenever she cried when I was alone with her, it was always a tantrum, so of course I didn't even try to comfort her. She never ran to me to take care of anything like her siblings do!"

"And could you have done anything for her back then?" asked Dana, her voice gentle.

"I couldn't cook or clean, but I could definitely have comforted her when she was upset," I countered.

"That wasn't because of your C-section," Dana softly spoke. "That was because of your lack of confidence and independence, and I agree your stepfather didn't do much to help you except tell you you couldn't do anything right when you blustered and made mistakes."

"That was what made my confidence go down as low as it did," I muttered.

"Let it go, Elli," Dana told me, smiling as she took my hand. "It's in the past. You're here on Pern now. Ever since you Impressed Chlorith, your confidence has really snowballed, hasn't it?"

Wiping away some of my tears, I nodded.

"There's no better emotional support system than your dragon, Elli," Dana assured me. "Trust me. Chlorith won't let you down!"

I wept anew, but this time with tears of joy.

"Thank you," I whispered, squeezing Dana's hand in gratitude. "Okay, let's do this!"

"Once they're out," Dana told me, "I'll give them to you to hold and nurse."

The tingling pats I felt on my belly stopped, and suddenly, the grossest thing in the world was placed on my arm.

"Eww!" I shouted, frantically trying to brush away my tears with my free hand. "What the holy shards is that?"

"Only your new son, Elli," Dana said happily. "Show her, Chlorith."

Images flooded my mind, images of my new son cradled in my arm, all wrinkly and squirmy… and perfect!

"Gabriel," G'narish whispered, wiping away tears of joy. "Gabriel Everett. What do you think? You're always singing his songs. I wish you still had a recording of him so I could hear what he sounded like."

"I couldn't have named him better myself!" I chuckled, cuddling my latest bundle of joy. "Gabriel Everett Swanson. He's a Ges!"

G'narish laughed through his joyful tears at my use of his initials as an acronym.

"One of the original colonists in the charter was called Gabriel, and I fell in love with that name ever since I saw it in print."

"To honor the original colonist and my grandpa, here's to Gabriel Everett Swanson."

"Let's not forget Linda Marie Swanson," Dana jubilantly declared as she deposited the second baby in my other arm. "Let's get Gabriel cleaned up. You'll need it, too, after holding him in your arms. We'll take him and give you some bonding time with Linda, and then we'll take her."

It was like Impressing a dragon all over again. The blissful experience of holding a baby is multiplied by thousands if it is your own baby, and I knew I wouldn't have to worry about postpartum depression anymore either, because Chlorith had taken that mental illness away from me upon our Impression. I had been off meds for 14 years, so there was nothing to stand in the way of myself or my children.

"You'll spend a few days here," Dana said, using a gauze pad to clean some of the goop off me. "After that, you can go home if you wish."

"Thanks, Dana," I told her, reaching out to pat her bloodstained hand. "I love you. Not romantically, platonically, but still, I love you."

Dana smiled, bent down, and gently kissed my cheek.

"Wonder if Tiffany had her twins, yet," she chuckled.

"She always has her babies on the same day as me," I laughed. "We really are twins! The only time we didn't have them on the same day was when I had Raeana. She was still a virgin back then!"

"If she's having her babies, I should be there!" D'nag exclaimed.

He had come into the room to rejoice with his brother, but now felt a sense of foreboding. Tiffany would want her weyrmate there, even though the babies were not his by DNA. F'rangle was gone, back to Benden Weyr where he could find a younger queen rider who didn't want her children for herself. F'rangle had never revealed to Tiffany that he didn't like children, nor did he like the responsibility of caring for children. He had always been a poor father, leaving all the work to Tiffany. As much as she loved children, she resented this very much. If you stuck it in her, you were going to have to face the music. If you can't keep it in your pants, then you suffer the consequences. His dragon had flown Rollith all those times, so he, as his rider, had to act through his link. Colinath didn't have to fly Rollith. F'rangle could have bowed out of the mating flights if he didn't want to run the risk of impregnating Tiffany.

D'nag, on the other hand, had never been a father. As Claranth had always preferred greens, D'nag had gone that way, too. He wasn't gay, but he didn't want to hurt the rider's feelings by mating with a woman. So, as much as he had hated it, he'd done it for them and his life mate. He had always wanted children. He had wanted to experience fatherhood as his brother had done. Now was his chance, even if they weren't his, they would have a father to love them instead of one who brushed them off as F'rangle had done.

"Med scans show you fit enough to go _between,_" Dana happily informed him. "Why don't you go find Claranth and see if Tiffany's had them yet."

"I'll be back later," D'nag said hurriedly. "Perhaps working here will occupy me during Threadfall. I can't stand the stuff anymore! It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it!"

"Well then, Mr. Heebie-jeebies," Dana chuckled, "get your sorry ass out of here and go see how Tiffany's doing! Go!"

Chapter 14 – A New Threat (Dana's P.O.V.)

D'nag didn't waste any time finding his dragon, Claranth, and heading back to Elli's reality. You could almost hear his and his dragon's howls of delight when Tiffany delivered her own twins. Though he'd never had children of his own, he donned the mantle of fatherhood without hesitation, welcoming Tiffany's children as his own, becoming the father they had wanted and needed. For Tiffany, D'nag became her weyrmate and confidante, filling her life with love and joy at last! And, for a time, the stars seemed to sparkle extra brightly, the multiverse at peace.

There were plenty of visitors at Robinton Cove, too, come to check out Tarnaa's first child. Rill and her green, Rilleth, were inseparable, each taking care of the other. They were a delight to watch together.

Healer-riders were dispatched to Rill's little hold so that her family could be informed about her new status. Imagine their surprise and wonder when dragonriders landed at their front door. Then try to picture the sight and sound of their collective chins hitting the floor when they learned she was now a dragonrider! Rill had told us her parents had reluctantly allowed her to go to Fort Hold to study the healing arts, but they were unaware that she had then moved to Robinton Cove and the new teaching hospital there.

As a sign of her new rank and as a courtesy to her family, Rill's parents were brought adragonback to Robinton Cove. They stood in stunned silence as they watched their daughter caring for her dragon.

"Papa!" Rill gasped, looking up to find her parents standing a short distance away.

They didn't move, their pained expressions revealing how deeply they regretted not listening to their child. With a smile and a laugh, Rill ran up to them, giving each of them a hug, the pain of the past forgotten.

"I'm glad you could come!" she said, pulling back to look at them.

"Sweetheart, we…" her mother stammered, wringing her hands.

"It's okay, Mom," Rill assured her, hugging her mother once more.

With no small amount of pride, Rill introduced her parents to her new lifemate, even giving them a chance to give Rilleth's eye ridges a scratch. The little green rumbled contentedly, completely submitting to the caresses. In return, she gently rubbed her muzzle against first Rill's mother and then her father.

"That's just her way of saying 'Thanks'," Rill explained, patting Rilleth on the neck. "Come on! Let me show you around!"

Along with the excitement of Rill's Impression, we also received unexpected news that day… when Ryeena finally had a chance to finish her med scan of me. As impossible as it seemed, the scan results revealed that I was with child, somehow conceiving during that first mating flight. L'trel was overjoyed, sweeping me up in a spinning embrace in the excess of his excitement. Just as quickly, he gently set me back on my feet, carefully smoothing my clothes back into place.

"Sorry," he apologized, grinning sheepishly.

"No, you're not," I giggled, giving him a hug and kiss.

The arrival of a second Wirenth in our reality did not go unnoticed by the people of this Pern. Individuals from all over the planet soon began to arrive; so many, in fact, that we had to build a special docking pier for all the ship traffic and construct additional housing for the visitors to stay in!

Elli's Brekke continued to study at the teaching hospital, refining her medical and surgical skills. It took nearly a year for all of her Wirenth's injuries to heal over. Robinton Cove resounded with the cheers and applause from everyone at the hospital the day the two of them once more took to the skies.

But, before that momentous day was reached, the rooms and halls of the hospital echoed with more cheers and applause on the day I gave birth to little Mia… who weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds 10 ounces!

"Oh, my aching back!" I groaned, though I was grinning from ear-to-ear when the healers announced her weight.

Just a single baby, not the twins or triplets that Elli and Tiffany had produced, but I didn't care one whit. Mia was my child… our child, I corrected myself as I looked over at L'trel, holding our precious little bundle in his arms. That was good enough for me! Time enough if we chose to have more.

Once Rilleth was deemed fit to start flying, Rill couldn't wait to get airborne. Still, she took no chances, double-checking the riding harness she had made for any defects or problems. Several master leather workers had even commented on the quality and sturdiness of Rill's handiwork, which only made her blush in embarrassment.

As part of her training, she was allowed to fly her dragon back and forth between Robinton Cove and Landing. This served a dual purpose. It gave Rill time to exercise her dragon in order to build up her strength and endurance. It also gave Rill an excuse to make use of the computer terminals in the AIVAS building at Landing.

"Really, Dana, I'm thrilled that you want to teach me the healing arts," she confided in me one day.

"But…" I responded, tilting my head to one side so that I could peer up into her face.

"I heard about Honshu and the observatory F'lessan found there," she explained, gesturing excitedly with her hands. "Built by the Ancients! I want to learn more about the stars… to learn what I can about the worlds they… and you… came from!"

"Well, AIVAS I'm sure will be more than happy to satisfy your curiosity, Rill," I said, thumping her on the shoulder. "Just don't overfly your lifemate flying back and forth!"

"I won't!" she replied, grinning from ear-to-ear as she gave my hands a grateful squeeze.

Six months into her sky watching down at Honshu, Rill made an unusual discovery.

"Dana, got a second?" she asked, knocking on my door at the hospital.

"What's up?" I wondered, looking up from feeding Mia.

"Here, let me take her," L'trel offered, taking the baby and her bottle from me.

"Thanks, sweetheart," I told him, adding a parting kiss as I went over to Rill. "Problem?"

"Not sure," she admitted, producing a stack of images and laying them out on my desk. "While I was down at Honshu, I noticed something strange."

"Strange how?" I wondered, glancing at the images.

"Here," Rill said, pointing to a faint pinpoint of light on the first image. "I took a series of images at the same point in time each night over the last month. Whatever this thing is, it's in the same spot in each image… and it seems to be growing."

"Have you asked AIVAS about it?" I asked, flipping through the stack of images.

"AIVAS isn't quite sure what it is," Rill sighed, shaking her head. "Said it might just be a comet."

Chills shot up and down my spine. Rill must've seen the look on my face because she asked, "What's wrong?"

I answered that question by opening a direct comm link from the hospital back to the AIVAS facility.

"How can I help you, Masterhealer?" the machine inquired.

"Have you had a chance to analyze the images Rill shared with you?" I asked.

"Yes," the machine replied. "Highest probability is that it is a cometary fragment from when the Pern system was formed."

"Can you project its trajectory based on those images?"

The machine paused a moment as it ran the calculations. Without skipping a beat, it reported, "Cometary fragment should impact somewhere in the equatorial region of the Eastern Sea."

"Ancestors, no!" I gasped. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I managed to ask, "How big is it?"

"Rough estimate places the object's diameter at 100 meters," AIVAS replied after a short pause.

"Projected energy release?"

"Projected what?!" L'trel wondered, looking up from feeding Mia.

"500 megatons TNT equivalent," AIVAS reported.

Rill was instantly at my side, her hand on my arm. "Dana, what's wrong?"

I was pale as a sheet, trembling all over.

"T… time…" I stammered, struggling to get my composure back. "Estimated time until impact?"

"Thirty two days, 23 hours, and 51 minutes," AIVAS replied.

I heaved an enormous sigh of relief. "We have time! Not much, but it'll do. AIVAS, this takes priority over everything else. Continue to monitor the fragment's course and speed. Keep me apprised of any significant changes."

"Understood, Masterhealer," it acknowledged before the screen went dark.

"Dana? What is it?" Rill asked, clearly worried. "What's this impact you talked about?"

"That object you spotted?" I replied, gesturing at the images she had brought. "It's a fragment of a comet, probably left over from the formation of this star system. Given its size and mass, if it strikes Pern, it will cause widespread damage and destruction, particularly any coastal facilities."

"Damage?!" L'trel gasped, getting to his feet. "What sort of damage?"

"Given its projected impact point, every Hold and Weyr on Pern will feel the impact," I told them.

"What?!" they both gasped, eyes flying wide.

"The impact will also trigger a massive tsunami," I added, tapping the images, "with waves potentially 50 dragonlengths high!"

"Shards and shells!" Rill gasped, horrified by the vision that conjured up in her mind.

"But, thanks to you, Rill," I said, trying to inject something positive into the mix, "we have time to prepare."

"Prepare?!" L'trel exclaimed, causing Mia to break out crying. "How do you prepare for something like that?!"

"By using the abilities of our dragons," I told them. "We already know they can move large objects, as long as they believe they can move it. With enough dragons, we can do this in two stages: teleport the fragment to the far side of Pern. That will eliminate the threat of impact. Then, we use their telekinesis ability to subtly alter the comet's trajectory so that it doesn't intersect Pern in the future."

"Why not simply nudge it now?" M'rice wondered as he entered.

He'd obviously overheard the discussion and entered the room followed by several other healer-riders.

"Given its mass and proximity," I explained to the new arrivals, "we couldn't nudge it enough to prevent impact. However, if we can teleport it to the far side of Pern, where it will be moving away from the planet, any trajectory modifications we attempt will be much more effective and more likely to succeed."

"But telekinesis?!" Teela gasped, clearly unnerved. "Our dragons don't have that ability!"

"Yes, they do," I responded, smiling. "I've seen it in the dragons from Elli's reality. Her dragons can show our dragons how to do it. Hmm."

"What's wrong?" Rill asked, her face lined with worry.

"I can't help wondering if this same fragment is part of their reality, too," I murmured, troubled by the possibility. "If it is, both our worlds are in danger."

"I can hop to their reality and check with their AIVAS to see if it does," Rill offered. "If their Honshu is the same as ours, I can use the telescope there to search for the comet fragment."

"L'trel?" I asked, looking his way.

"Do what you have to, Dana," he assured me, smiling as Mia began sucking on the bottle once more. "I'll look after Mia."

"Thanks, love!" I told him, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"I'll go with you," I said to Rill. "Tarnaa's been there before. She can give Rilleth the fix we need, but we need to hurry."

"Lead on, Masterhealer!" Rill jauntily cheered.

The other healer-riders helped me and Rill get suited up in our spacesuits. Then, with their help, we climbed aboard our dragons and clipped into their riding harnesses.

"Ready, Rill?" I radioed to her, giving her a thumbs-up signal.

"Ready!" she acknowledged, returning the gesture.

_Does Rilleth have the fix, my heart?_ I silently inquire.

_Yes,_ Tarnaa replies. _She is very excited about the journey._

_ Then, let's hurry, love,_ I urged her, pumping my fist in the air._ Our two worlds may depend on it!_

With that, our two dragons leapt skyward, gaining wing room with each downstroke of their great gossamer wings. Then, pausing for just a heartbeat, we vanished _between_!

Chapter 15 - Combatting the Threat (Elli's P.O.V.)

_They come_, Chlorith informed me as I was busy preparing my flamethrower.

Once again, I was fighting Thread, even though I was beginning to feel the onset of menopause. Finally, I thought, no more pregnancies, no more wasting time in bed! I had always wasted time in bed before I Impressed Chlorith, but she had given my life so much more meaning and helped me realize just how much the other people and dragons in my life meant to me.

"Who comes?" I asked her, strapping my flamethrower on my back.

_Tarnaa's rider_, replied Chlorith with a sense of urgency in her voice.

"Yay!" I cried happily. "I can hold the baby, and she can join the Queens' wing!"

She'd have to leave the baby with Mom until the end of Fall, but afterward, I was going to monopolize her for the duration of Dana's stay.

_She lands_, Chlorith informed me, a hint of fear in her voice.

But why? There was nothing to be afraid of. We were about to fight Thread. We'd done that countless times in our lives. Was her fear for G'narish? Was he in the throes of yet another flashback?

D'nag still had them, too, but this time, I had the bright idea of sticking them in a room together to see if that'd lessen at least one of their flashbacks. I had virtually no hope that this would work for D'nag, but G'narish's flashbacks were because he had seen D'nag being badly scored and vanish before his eyes. If he saw D'nag was with him, his flashbacks might stop entirely.

"Dana!" I cried, running to her to give her a hug. "Did you bring the baby? Huh? Huh? Did ja did ja did ja?"

"No, I didn't bring Mia this time," Dana smiled apologetically. "We have an emergency, and we need your help."

"You didn't bring the baby?" I was crestfallen. "Now how am I gonna get my baby fix? Gabriel and Linda are toddlers now, and they're both fiercely independent. I can only get them on my lap when it's bedtime."

"We spotted a 100-meter comet fragment that's heading right toward Pern," Dana said in a flat voice. "It's projected to hit the Eastern Sea and cause a massive tsunami if we don't stop it."

No doubt about it. Her FSP training was kicking in to high gear.

"There's no way in hell we could move that!" I cried.

_You don't think so?_ Chlorith asked in a challenging tone. _We can teach their dragons telekinesis._

"How's that gonna help us?" I demanded. "I could pair dragons with dragons to teach them telekinesis, but how the hell are we gonna get out to that fireball in order to move it? Wouldn't moving the fireball hurt the dragons? It is, after all, a fireball."

"A comet is not a fireball," Dana calmly explained. "For the most part, it's just frozen rock and ice. Dragons can move that. It only becomes a fireball as it enters the atmosphere."

"Okay, okay," I conceded. "But we have Threadfall now. Can we call all the dragons here afterward?"

"Give me a sack of firestone," Dana said resignedly. "Tarnaa and I can fight Thread with you, but after that we need to get going!"

Resolutely, she mounted Tarnaa as someone handed her a sack of firestone. I couldn't see who it was, but the gasp Dana let out had me turning around.

"What are you doing in riding gear?" she called out. "Are you gonna fight?"

"I'm going to try," I was surprised to hear G'narish say. "No guarantees I'll last very long without having flashbacks, but Chlorith's right. I need to desensitize myself sooner or later."

I broke down in happy tears. I couldn't believe he was gonna fight alongside F'lessan.

"But what about D'nag?" I asked. "He needs help, too."

"I think fighting Thread will give him all the help he needs." G'narish replied.

"But he isn't out here," I protested. "Tiffany has to fight; she can't just stay home any longer. There are only four fighting queens, so she's got to fight. I'm including Dana in this."

"Don't worry, Elli, I've got this," Dana called out to me, her voice betraying the joy she felt at his determination to overcome his demons. "I'll fight alongside G'narish and make sure he doesn't have flashbacks."

"This won't get rid of the flashbacks I have when I think of killing two people, but it might just get rid of the Thread flashbacks."

That settled, we were quickly airborne to meet the menace of Thread. All through the fall, I kept an eye on G'narish through Chlorith's link with Gyarmath. I didn't sense a single flashback throughout the six-hour Fall. When it was over, I finally let my joyous tears flow, completely forgetting about the comet.

Dana hadn't forgotten, though. Her sense of urgency had mounted since she had landed.

"We can't waste any more time!" Dana cried urgently. "We need to call all the dragons from both dimensions. Your dragons need to teach ours how to use telekinesis!"

"Let's teleport the object, first," I suggested. "We'll meet halfway and run into the object, then carry it away from the Eastern sea. Then we'll get to work on the Telekinesis lessons."

"It's not here yet," Dana reminded me. "It'll take about 32 days for it to get here."

"Okay then, back to plan A," I sighed reluctantly.

With that, Dana and I reached out with our minds and called to the dragons. Of both universes.

"Now,, each of you from Dana's reality pair with someone from my reality," I instructed. "I want the dragon from my reality to throw something at the dragon from Dana's reality and see if they can deflect it. If you have a doppelgänger, pair with them. If you don't, find another singleton and pair with them."

"Hold on a sec," Dana interrupted, looking from dragons to riders. "We have two extra browns here, and they don't look too good!"

"How do you know they're extra?" I asked.

"Each rider is standing by his or her dragon," Dana pointed out, "but these two don't have riders with them. They look as though they've been badly burned."

"Threadscore?" I asked, moving to touch one of them.

He whimpered in pain.

"It's okay, sweetie," I assured him, "we're going to help you. Who's your rider?"

_L'tol,_ the two browns said in unison.

"There is no rider named L'tol," I remarked, but Dana suddenly grabbed my arm.

"There used to be," she whispered, her hand shaking, "until he lost his dragon!"

Turning to the browns, she asked them, "What are your names?"

_Larth_, they answered together.

"By the Fire Falls of Firlea!" Dana gasped, her grip on my arm tightening. "We need to bring Lytol here right away… both of them!"

"Call him to you," I told the Larths. "He should still hear your voice."

The two Ruths had left Honshu, but arrived presently with the two Lytols, one of whom had been at Dana's hospital as he ran the administration part of affairs there. He had been taking notes on a patient when Ruth had landed outside his window and telekinetically flipped him to his back. Both Lytols gasped in fright as the Ruths took them _between_ to my Honshu.

"What the shards is going on here?" they demanded in unison as they not so gracefully dismounted in front of the injured dragons.

One look at the two browns in front of them stopped them dead in their tracks, staring in a mix of fear and wonder.

"Larth?" they whispered in concert.

The Lytol from Dana's reality whimpered, "I had finally come to grips with your death, and you come out of the blue!"

"How is this possible?" the other Lytol whispered, hesitantly reaching out his hand to his wounded lifemate.

"We really didn't need this complication right now," Dana muttered.

"Tarnaa'll be fine with Chlorith." I said. "Take them to the hospital and get them fixed up. They probably won't be able to save Pern with us, but at least they'll be seen to. Lytol, go with them."

My comment was directed at both men, and they each grasped one of Dana's hands as Tarnaa neatly deflected a ball from hitting her in the head.

"Nicely done, my heart!" cheered Dana as she left with the two Lytols and Larths.

After Dana left, Chlorith threw a bigger ball at Tarnaa, who neatly deflected it.

_Watch her,_ Chlorith directed the other dragons. _She's got it down pat._

"Who will I pair up with?" asked Rill, and it was only then that I realized she was alone.

"You can pair with Zaranth, the master," I said. "I'm surprised she isn't in your reality."

"She is," Rill pointed out. "Don't you see them working together?"

"Hmmmmmm," I mused. "You seem to be the odd one out here. Chlorith, can you handle two?"

_Of course I can!_ she replied. _Rilleth, watch what Tarnaa's doing and try to emulate her. I'm gonna throw something at you using telekinesis, and you try to deflect it before it hits you._

The first few attempts were disastrous. Poor Rilleth was going to have a whole lot of bruises from all the objects that hit her, but finally, she got the concept and began to successfully deflect them.

_Okay, we've all mastered that,_ I called telepathically. _Now it's time to switch roles. Everyone from Dana's reality, try to move the object you have in front of you. Everyone from my reality, try to catch it._

This was much harder and took much longer to master. Every day we worked tirelessly to master telekinesis. My Zaranth was the master of telekinesis, whereas Dana's Zaranth was hopeless! We were actually thinking of leaving her out of the shift, when she finally deflected a trundle bug purely by accident. Chlorith cheered as the trundle bug changed direction at top speed and flew right into the sea.

_That was quite a thrust!_ she said in amazement. _You really can do it, Zaranth._

_I always knew I could,_ Zaranth smugly responded.

As the days turned into sevendays, I was becoming more and more confident that we could pull off this feat. It was going to be a grand event, but we decided not to invite the Pernese to see it because the dragons would need to concentrate all their effort on shifting the cometary fragment.

"The fewer who know about it, the better," the F'lars told me. "It would only set off a massive panic."

"I've been working with the Larths," Dana said. "They'll both recover, but they'll have scars. Burns won't stop them from performing telekinesis on the fragment. I'll make sure they're at Honshu for the shift."

Everything was finally ready to go. In just a few days, the dragons would be able to show off their newfound skills and once again save Pern from utter destruction.

Chapter 16 – Double Trouble (Dana's P.O.V.)

I was pleasantly surprised how quickly the dragons from both realities picked up the telekinesis skill. I couldn't help wondering though if Kitty Ping Yung had programmed that ability into their genetic code or if they had simply evolved, developing the ability as a result. Well, whatever the reason, we were going to need it to divert the cometary fragment away from its projected point of impact and save all of Pern from something far worse than the pandemic that had once swept the planet.

Rill, when she wasn't nursing Rilleth's bruises from the initial stages of TK training, made good use of her time visiting Honshu Weyrhold and making use of the observatory there. Seemed like the Kenjo Fusaiyukis from both realities had been identical in their desire to study the stars, the two observatories nearly identical in their design, layout, and functionality. As we were entering our fourth week of TK training, Rill came to me with disturbing news.

"How did you know?" she demanded, slapping a stack of images down on the table in front of me.

"Know? About what?" I wondered, a little confused.

"The cometary fragment!" she exclaimed, grabbing one of the images she had brought, showing it to me. "There's one inbound to this Pern, too!"

"What?!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet.

"I double-checked this series of images with this reality's AIVAS," Rill groaned, wringing her hands. "It's projected to strike somewhere in the equatorial region of the Eastern Sea, just like ours! But how did it shift so many Turns into their future?"

"Probably the same way Pern experienced long intervals," I muttered, shaking my head. "Planetary perturbations somehow altered this reality's fragment, delaying its arrival until now."

Could our bridging the two realities have somehow triggered the perturbations, altering this reality's cometary fragment, causing the delayed arrival? It sent chills up and down my spine just thinking about it.

"We need to talk to the Weyrleaders," I decided, heading out the door.

When we filled them in on Rill's latest discovery, we were met with disbelief, shock, and a little anger.

"By the First Egg!" Elli's F'lar cursed, pounding his fist on the table.

"How are we going to stop both fragments?" our Lytol wondered, glancing about the room.

"The same way you altered the course of the Red Star," I told my F'lar.

"We used the anti-matter cores from the three colony ships to do that!" Elli's F'lar argued. "That option won't work in this case."

"Yes, it can," I disagreed, a slight smile coming to my lips. "How big were those power cores?"

"Nearly four dragonlengths across," Elli's Lessa reported.

"Huge by any standard," I said, nodding, "and yet, the dragons were still able to shift them, weren't they?"

"Well, yeah," our F'lar remarked, chuckling as he recalled. "Our dragons kept telling us they could move it as long as they believed they could."

"It took three groups of dragons to move the three power cores from the Yokohama, the Buenos Aires, and the Bahrain," I went on, leaning on the table. "What if we combined those three groups to shift the fragment?"

Eyes all around me suddenly lit up with recognition. What I was proposing suddenly became possible!

"You have a plan?" Elli's L'tol asked.

"Yes, but it will take dragons from both realities to accomplish it," I replied.

"Both realities?!" my Lessa exclaimed. "Why?"

"Threadfall," I grimly replied. "Each reality by itself doesn't have enough dragons and riders to cover the Fall and pull this off successfully. But if we combine the riders who are available from each reality, we'll have just enough."

"You were a pilot in the FSP before you came to Pern," Elli commented, brow furrowed. "You have more experience than any of us in outer space, so what's your plan?"

"A two-pronged attack," I explained. "While I acknowledge that the dragons' TK ability is impressive, it's somewhat limited in zero-g."

"What do you mean?" my L'tol wondered.

"A simple law of physics," I told them. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

"Ow, my head's starting to hurt," one of the other riders joked, causing a few more to chuckle.

"Were you watching the dragons when they used their TK ability?" I asked.

"We all were," another rider from my reality replied. "What of it?"

"When they tried to move the heavier objects, what did you see?"

I wondered.

"Well, they struggled a little to move them," Rill answered, considering her own observations, "but they were still able to."

"Did you notice how they had to sink their talons into the ground to move those heavier objects?"

"Now that you mention it," my G'narish commented, recalling some of the details, "I did notice that. What does it mean?"

"As the dragons were pushing with their TK, the objects were resisting being moved," I explained. "It was as if they were pushing back. The only way the dragons could overcome that resistance was to dig into the ground. In space, in zero-g, they won't have any ground to hold onto. When they use their TK to try and move the fragment, some of that energy will be transferred to the fragment, causing it to alter course a fractional amount. The rest will cause the dragons to move in the opposite direction away from what they pushed against."

"Then, it's impossible to stop the impact!" M'rice muttered, the others shifting nervously.

"Oh, we can stop it alright!" I assured them.

"How?" Elli wondered. "You just said the TK effect will only be marginally effective!"

"The TK effort will be phase two of my plan," I said, my gaze sweeping the others. "For the first part, we can use the dragons' ability to shift the fragment… just like they did shifting the power cores."

"But shift it where?" my Lessa wondered.

"To the far side of Pern," I replied, grinning. "We won't do anything to alter the fragment's speed or trajectory, just kind of leapfrog it over Pern, bringing it out on the far side and heading away from the planet."

"That's where the TK ability we're learning from your dragons, Elli," I said to her, giving her shoulder a squeeze, "will help us save both Perns."

"How?" she whispered.

"Once the fragment's on an outbound trajectory," I said, grinning broadly, "we can then use the dragons' TK abilities to gradually alter the trajectory and send the fragment out of the system, never to return!"

"A series of small nudges," she murmured, growing more excited. "Yes! I see what you mean! Since there's no friction out in space, even the tiniest nudge will have an effect!"

"And if we add up a lot of nudges…" Rill chimed in, her own excitement growing.

"We can send that damned piece of shit packing!" Elli's G'narish exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "Ooops! Sorry!"

"We can do this!" Elli whispered, excited and relieved. "But how do we do both? The dragons and riders will be exhausted just doing one!"

"We time it," Elli's Jaxom offered. "How long until impact?"

"Two days, seven hours, and…" Rill replied, checking her watch, "forty seven minutes."

"Then we call the riders we need from your reality, Dana," Elli's Jaxom suggested. "Bring them here to rest for a day. We do this leapfrogging, as you call it, transfer the fragment to the far side of Pern, then get the dragons to use their TK to alter the fragment's trajectory. AIVAS can help us with the calculations. Once we're done here, everyone rests for a day, then we jump to your reality, timing it back to the same time from impact point as we used here."

"And, since it will be a future time for us in our reality," my Jaxom added, "there's no danger of timing-it too close to ourselves. Everyone involved rests for that day, and we repeat what we did here, saving both Perns in the process!"

Cheers erupted all around us.

"By the First Egg, we can do this!" my F'lar exclaimed.

"And we really have the dragons of this reality teaching the dragons of our reality how to use their TK ability to thank for this," I said, nodding to Chlorith and the others. "Without that, we'd have a more difficult task to deal with."

"Let's not forget Rill and her contribution to this," Elli remarked, giving the green rider a warm hug. "Without your critical observations from Honshu…"

"In both realities," the two L'tol's added, grinning at each other.

"We wouldn't have been alerted in time to do anything about it," I sighed, giving her a generous hug of gratitude. "You did one hell of a job, green rider! Kenjo Fusaiyuki would've been proud of you and what you did!"

"And so will Masterstarsmith Wansor," my Lessa added, "once he learns of your work and what it will mean to all of Pern."

Blushing fiercely, Rill nodded to those around her, adding, "We better get some rest. We have a busy day ahead tomorrow."

Chapter 17 - The Massive Shift (Elli's P.O.V.)

I didn't understand physics or quantum mechanics at all. I would have been an awful FSP pilot. All I understood was that the fragments could be diverted and that the dragons would be the ones to do it. I didn't sleep at all that night. I put on my Bluetooth hat and tried to listen to an audiobook on my phone to get me to sleep, but it was no use. It didn't help that I had chosen a new one from the AIVAS files that I hadn't read before. I was off my meds for 15 Turns, so I was no longer able to rely on them to go to sleep.

I finally rose at 4 in the morning. Careful not to disturb G'narish, I crept downstairs to brew some klah. I heard footsteps behind me. I froze, stock still. I hadn't meant to wake anyone else, so I had crept downstairs in my bare feet.

"Who goes there?" I whispered.

The footsteps were quiet before, but now they stopped entirely. I reached out with my hand and felt a small hand grip mine.

"Mama?"

It was one of the twins, but I couldn't tell which one.

"Yes?" I asked, squeezing the small hand in mine.

"Why can't we shift the cometary fragment?"

"Because, Ori," I ventured tentatively, "you're too young. You can't fight Thread. Therefore, you can't do this, either."

"Aurelith's old enough," Oriana commented. "I'm 11 now, and I have mated several times now. I even got my period last sevenday, so I'm old enough!"

"You need to be 16, dear heart," I said firmly. "You're only 11. You can't do it!"

"This isn't anything like fighting Thread, dear heart," said a quiet voice behind us.

Oh no, I'd woken him up!

"It's the dragons who will be doing all the work, not the riders," G'narish quietly said, slipping an arm around my waist. "And besides, Aurelith showed massive telekinetic ability and skill. What was all that hard training for if you're not gonna let her use it?"

"There'll be other opportunities!" I shouted, no longer caring if I woke anybody up. "She's too young, and that's it, and that's final! If she can't fight Thread, she can't do this!"

"She'll be perfectly safe," G'narish reassured me calmly. "We need all the dragons if this is going to work. As much as I hate to admit it, we need the twins."

"I'm gonna kill Dana for this!" I mumbled resignedly.

Then, reluctantly turning to my tearful daughter, I said, "You may do it, but I warn you, if you put Aurelith in any danger, besides the danger she'll already be in shifting that fireball, I'll kill you!"

"I think I'd suicide with her if there were any risk of that." Oriana said seriously.

"There won't be any need for that!" cried G'narish fiercely. "Let's go. It's nearly time. Go get your sister."

"I'm already here," sniffed Ariana tearfully. "Mama woke me up. She said we couldn't go."

"And I'm saying you can go," said G'narish fiercely.

"Really?" Ariana's eyes lit up like the sky that completely matched their shade.

"Yes, you can go," I sighed reluctantly.

Our four youngest dragonriders would be instrumental in saving the planet.

"Let's go," G'narish said again.

We met F'lessan in the courtyard. Golanth was coming out of his weyr, excitement written plainly in his demeanor. Tiffany and D'nag emerged from their weyr and mounted their dragons. Calentia was the last to emerge. She shook visibly as she mounted Zareth.

"Where's Tai?" I asked after taking the roll call.

"She's at Monaco Weyr," F'lessan replied. "Her first responsibility is still to her Weyr."

"All right then, let's get ready to rumble!" I shouted, flinging my arms up above my head.

We met in space. It was quite the sight to see, thousands of dragons all grouped together. There was the object, just as Rill and Dana had described it. Chlorith and Tarnaa called the roll for both realities to make sure no one was missing. By some miracle, Thread was falling harmlessly off to the west, so every single dragonrider was in attendance. I heard two people sniffling behind me. In spite of myself, I turned around to see who was gently weeping.

"I don't want them to do it either, Tiffany," D'nag was saying in a consoling voice, "but we have no choice. Their dragons are old enough, and their weight would mean less strain for them."

"But they're too young!"

Tiffany's sob of anguish pierced my heart, and I moved in space to put an arm around her trembling shoulders.

"I said mine were too young, too, twin," I joined in comforting her, "but G'narish had the final say and they're behind me."

"But what if they don't make it?" Tiffany pleaded me with her eyes, but of course I could only see that through Chlorith's vision.

"We'll protect them," I spoke soothingly. "Why don't we arrange our dragons so that we're right next to theirs. That way, we can watch them. Remember, it's not the riders who are doing the work; it's the dragons. Worth and Warth are four Turns old. They reached their full maturity last Turn. They scored high in TK training. They'll be fine."

Tiffany turned into my shoulder and wept hard.

"Shh, shh," I said softly. "They'll make it. We all will. Ariana hasn't said anything to the contrary. We'll pull this off, I promise, twin. We've already been through so much together. We'll pull through this, as well."

I gave her a final squeeze, then turned to see who else was crying.

"What's the matter?" I asked. "Do you need a hug?"

"I was hoping no one noticed me," Calentia muttered miserably.

"Nonsense!" I spoke soothingly, putting my arms around my stepdaughter's torso. "What's wrong, sweetie?"

"I'm scared, Mama," she sobbed, giving in to her tears. "I'm afraid I'll lose my dragon."

"Ariana didn't say anything bad would happen, and you know she'd catch it with her prescience," I assured her. "Oh shards, here it comes!"

As though they had done this sort of thing all their lives, the dragons easily latched on to the fragment.

Over the spacesuit radios, we heard Dana count down, "Shifting in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… now!"

In the blink of an eye, every dragon vanished _between._ Three deep breaths later, or approximately eight seconds, everyone reemerged on the far side of Pern, the massive cometary fragment firmly in tow! Calls went out over the suit radios, the cheers deafening in the close confines of the spacesuits.

"Leapfrog phase complete!" Dana radioed. "Shift successful. Well done, everyone! Begin phase 2!"

Then I felt Chlorith's mind nudging the fragment ever so slowly away from the planet's surface.

_Can't we just hurl it?_ she whined plaintively. _It'd be a lot more fun than nudging it._

"It's too heavy, lovey," I laughed.

_Not with all of us here,_ Chlorith challenged me, and suddenly I felt the concentrative effort of more than 2000 dragons hurling the massive fireball out of Pern's orbit.

"Yay!" I cried. "You did it!"

_We did it!_ said Chlorith happily.

"It was your idea to throw it like a bowling ball!" I smiled.

"What the hell just happened?" Dana demanded, floating up to me.

"It was Chlorith's idea to hurl it out of orbit, not mine." I pleaded with her. "She takes the initiative a lot lately. She was always a leader, even when I blindly followed everyone else. My leadership qualities were manifest in her most of the time."

"What'll the repercussions be?" Dana wonders.

"I don't know," I admitted. "They might've hurled it into your reality, making the two objects collide and destroy each other, dissipating in the atmosphere before they could impact on the ground."

"That remains to be seen. Come back to my reality with me and we'll see if your theory is correct."

Not only did I go along, all the others went with us. We crowded around the telescope at Dana's Honshu Weyrhold and watched in awed fascination as the two fireballs collided at the outer extremes of Pern's atmosphere, causing a sonic boom as loud as the one that occurred when Mount Krakatoa erupted in Indonesia in 1886. All of us were temporarily deafened as the particles disintegrated in the air, causing the equivalent of a meteor shower. When our hearing finally returned to us, we heaved a collective sigh. Chlorith's plan had worked! The dragons were much better at TK than anyone could have ever guessed. They were even stronger when they merged their minds, the way they had done when they had hurled the object out of orbit. Now we really had reason to celebrate. How Ariana hadn't caught it was beyond my comprehension. I looked for her but couldn't find her.

"Where's Ari?" I asked Dana as she gave me a giant bear hug.

"She's over there," Dana said innocuously.

"Where's 'over there'?" I demanded.

"Ooh, shells, I forgot! She's behind you."

"Ari?" I asked, waving her over with my hand.

"Yeah, Mama?" she asked, looking confused.

"How come you didn't see what was gonna happen?" I demanded.

"I don't see everything," Ariana said in a duh voice. "I just saw that we would be successful."

"Well, we most definitely were successful," I told her. "I'm proud of you. I'm proud of all of you!"

Chapter 18 – The Aftermath (Dana's P.O.V.)

The crisis was over; the disasters averted. When the citizenry of both Perns learned about the herculean effort by the dragons and riders of both realities to prevent the catastrophe that was nearly visited on both worlds, celebrations erupted all over both planets. Once more, the Dragonriders of Pern had done what they had always done since their creation Turns ago… they fought to protect Pern.

That's not to say the dragonriders could rest just yet. They still had to get through this final Pass before Pern would be forever free of the scourge of Thread, and that meant flying the Falls that would come until the Pass was over.

Still, both worlds had cause to celebrate. Because of Rill's efforts in tracking the cometary fragment plus the combined efforts of dragons and riders from both realities, the cometary fragment had been successfully dealt with. When Falls permitted, Gathers were thrown all over both Perns. We had survived yet another threat to our survival, and that was reason enough to celebrate!

One such party was underway at Robinton Cove, hosted by the riders and staff of the teaching hospital. But one attendee stood away from the celebration, lost in thought.

_Dana?_

_Hello, Chlorith,_ I greeted Elli's dragon.

_Why aren't you at the party?_ she rumbled, coming up beside me. _We beat the fragment! We saved Pern!_

_Yes, and we have you and the other dragons from Elli's reality to thank for it,_ I responded.

_Then why are you sad?_ Chlorith wanted to know.

_Not sad,_ I assured her, patting her neck. _I just think we could've done things a little differently._

_ What do you mean?_ she asked.

_A lot of people were frightened in this reality when those two fragments collided,_ I sighed, glancing once more over at the celebration nearby. _Could we have done things differently and spared them that fright?_

_ You're mad at me,_ Chlorith muttered, her eyes shading to an uncertain orange.

Chuckling, I turned to Elli's queen. _Look at my eyes, Chlorith, and you'll see the truth._

_ They're a blue-green!_ she noted, her own eyes taking on a greener color as she relaxed.

_I know you and the others meant well, Chlorith,_ I assured her, once more patting her head. _And, ultimately, your actions did save this Pern from destruction. You and I are both pledged to protect Pern. That's a lot of responsibility for anyone to shoulder. We just have to be careful how we do the saving. Alright?_

_ Roger that!_ Chlorith trilled, rubbing her muzzle against my face.

_Now let's get back to the party before we're missed!_ I chuckled as we set off to rejoin the festivities. _Elli's probably frantic you're not there and L'trel's been busy babysitting Mia in my absence. We'd better hurry!_

_ We can take our time, _Chlorith chuckled. _Elli's been getting her baby fix helping L'trel with little Mia!_

Laughing together, dragon and human rejoined the festivities.

Chapter 19 – Abominators (Elli's P.O.V.)

"Where's Chlorith?" I asked the room at large. "I can't find her anywhere. I can't touch her."

"She's probably in Dana's dimension," said G'narish. "She goes there a lot."

"But not without me!" I cried passionately. "I think she's regretting what she initiated today. I need to go to her, but how do I get there?"

_She comes,_ said Gyarmath.

Sure enough, she landed right in front of me, nudging up against me with her head.

"I love you, Chlorith," I reassured her. "I love you for what you did. In one move, you destroyed 2 cometary fragments. With your actions, you saved not one, but two planets from destruction. I love you, my gentle, precious, golden queen! I love you! I love you!"

I knelt down and encircled her neck with my arms, leaning my head against hers. At least she wasn't keening, and she was responding to my touch.

"Was Dana mad at you or something?" I asked her.

_She said she wished I'd done it her way instead of mine, but it was just too boring that way. It was also more exhausting than merging with our minds and hurling it. Besides, if we had done it her way, we would've had to do it twice, which would've caused much more exhaustion for both DRAGONS and RIDERS. And we would've had to time it the second time, which would've caused even more fatigue in the riders. Wasn't my way much better?_

Her question was spoken in the form of a plea.

"Yes, my precious darling heart," I reassured her. "Yes, it was. No worries. Let's get back to the party. Only the Weyrs are celebrating. I think all Pern should be apprised of what's going on and celebrate with us. We must spread the word! I doubt even my own mother knows what we did. She never understood psionic abilities. She never understood that I could hear you and she couldn't. Sometimes, I wonder if she even believes how smart you are."

I lapsed into a sad, brooding silence. Now it was Chlorith's turn to reassure me.

_Your mother loves you very much, Elli,_ she told me in a gentle voice. _She sacrificed a whole lot for you in your 51 Turns of life. She gave up her brothers and sisters to come with you to Pern. I don't know how much she's actually adjusted to life here, because I don't hear her, but she seems happy. One thing I do know is that she's very proud of you. You've progressed more in these 15 Turns than you ever have in your 36 Turns on Earth. You gave her more grandchildren. You Impressed me! You gained the independence you always lacked on Earth. You gained a hell of a lot more confidence than you had on Earth. It took Impressing me to effect these changes, and she was always looking for things that would help you. Now, because of me, you have all those things she's always wanted for you, and for that, I'm proud of myself!_

She began to preen, and I couldn't help laughing.

"Chlorith, you're one of a kind!" I told her, slapping her neck affectionately.

I called my fire-lizards and asked G'narish to write me a message to send to the Harper Hall and to the Smithcrafthall. I sent Elizabeth to Menolly, and I sent Marie-Antoinette to Master Fandarel.

"Why didn't you just send a group text?" asked G'narish when I sent the fire-lizards on their way.

"Because I didn't want any trouble by sending the message a new way," I replied. "Besides, fire-lizards can go to both realities; texts can't. I can't reach Dana when we're in separate realities. Cell and sat phones don't work that way. We're gonna have trouble with the exiles on the Eastern Island ring. I should have thought of that before I thought to spread the news of our victory."

"Oh boy," said G'narish, gripping my arm.

"I should've thought of that before showcasing myself. I'm so selfish!"

"No, no, sweetheart!" G'narish said comfortingly. "Pern needs to know about the near miss. People were probably looking through their telescopes last night and wondering what that fireball was."

"They need to know what that sonic boom was," said Tiffany, walking into the weyr. "We can't leave them wondering."

"You're right, we can't," I responded. "I'd better warn Dana though. Knowing her, she probably sent Goldie with a message telling everyone in her reality that the fragment was destroyed. She will need to be apprised of the threat in case the Abominators in her reality choose to act. It was a good thing she did in both realities, because they were unprotected from Thread for several Turns, but reintegrating them into our society will probably cause a few repercussions."

"They haven't acted up since she reintroduced them to society," G'narish reminded me.

"But they haven't had reason to," I argued. "Now they most certainly do. They'll say that we brought the cometary fragments into our atmosphere by diverting the Red Star. That's what they said in 2553 when the comet hit the Eastern Sea and caused that tsunami."

"Perhaps you're a clairvoyant." G'narish laughed.

"The only thing I ever predicted that came true was that the Packers would win the Super Bowl in 1997. I had three prescient dreams, but they took years to come true. In 1996, I dreamt that America declared war on Serbia. It took three years before my dream came true. We had the Kosovo conflict in 1999. In 1996, I dreamt my then boyfriend died. That one took 13 years to come true, and then I didn't have the cause of death right. I dreamt he died of cancer, and he was actually hit from behind by a car. In 1997, I dreamt that the British declared war on Serbia. That dream came true when America did it. It was only air strikes but that's still war to me. People still died. Bombs still fell, and there were thousands of refugees."

"You haven't had a prescient dream since 1997?" G'narish asked, his tone gentle.

I shook my head.

"Let's not start now," he said, patting my head and ruffling my shaved hair. "Let's celebrate. After all, it was your dragon who came up with the bright idea to hurl it out of our reality. That queen has a thrust that must be seen to be believed."

Chapter 20 – Moving Forward (Dana's P.O.V.)

Celebrations all across Pern continued for several months after the crisis was met and dealt with. In time, things began to settle back into a more normal pattern of routine.

I continued to make periodic visits to the teaching hospital in Elli's reality. Moreta already had superior veterinary skills. Those dragons brought to her teaching hospital received the best care possible, eventually augmented by the med equipment AIVAS was able to recall and the Smithcrafts across Pern were finally able to reproduce. When I could, I taught her the various surgical techniques I had learned at the Academy, skills Moreta put to good use healing the humans who came to the hospital for care. And, just as we had done in my reality, they quickly established a full wing of dragon-riding healers to provide near instantaneous healing services across Pern.

And, because there was such a clamor for it, on one of my visits to Elli's reality, I was able to successfully restart their AIVAS unit and reactivate its voice recognition systems. Now, Elli and her people would be better able to upgrade the technologies that were making their way back into Pern society in her reality. I was actually surprised that the command code activation sequence I had uncovered in my reality worked on the AIVAS unit in Elli's reality. Guess that was just a measure of how similar our two realities were.

While I was there, I also downloaded some of the recent history of that Pern's reality. It would make it interesting to compare it to how our reality was turning out, since our timeline was effectively almost 11 Turns behind theirs.

"What'cha working on?" Rill asked, peering past my shoulder at the computer screen I was working at.

"Computer analysis of that cometary fragment we stopped in this reality," I replied, watching the animation repeat itself. "We got lucky, Rill, thanks to you."

"Well, we had help from Elli's folks and her dragons," Rill replied, clapping me on the shoulder.

"Yes, we did," I quietly chuckled.

But Rill somehow sensed that something was wrong. "What is it? Something's bothering you, I can tell."

"I downloaded some of the recent history of Elli's Pern from AIVAS while I was there for the restart and reactivation," I explained. "I've been studying it to see how similar our two realities are."

"And?" Rill inquired when I hesitated.

"The cometary fragment we diverted wasn't the first to threaten their Pern," I replied, trembling slightly.

"What?!" Rill gasped, caught off-guard by my remark. "What do you mean?"

"According to their records, a cometary fragment struck in their Eastern Ring Sea in year 31 of the present pass," I explained, pulling up the data file. "It caused widespread destruction to many coastal facilities from the resulting tsunami. According to AIVAS, the impact had an energy release equivalent to 7.4 gigatons!"

"I'm sorry, you lost me on that," Rill confessed, unfamiliar with the term.

"The point is… the fragment you spotted was actually the second fragment to threaten their Pern," I said.

"Wait!" Rill exclaimed, holding up her hands to slow things down. "This is only year 25 of the current pass. If our two realities are so similar, where did that fragment we destroyed come from? If our worlds are similar, that first fragment shouldn't have arrived for another six Turns!" I nodded. "Now you know why I'm so concerned. Something in this reality altered the trajectory of our cometary fragments, bringing them to Pern six Turns early. If you hadn't spotted it when you did, we would've been faced with the same planet-wide destruction that Elli's reality endured."

"Shards and Shells!" Rill gasped, her face turning white as a sheet. Recovering some of her composure, she asked, "Have you figured out what caused it to deviate?"

"No," I admitted, shutting down the computer, "but I'm counting on you and your work at Honshu to warn us about the second fragment…"

"If there is one," Rill whispered, whistling in astonishment. "Don't worry, Dana, I won't let you down. I owe you for bringing Rilleth to me."

"Be sure to talk to Masterstarsmith Wansor," I urged her as we headed out of my office. "Get whatever help you need from him. And check with the other weyrs. See if there are any other riders who want to help you with the search."

"You got it!" she replied, giving me a jaunty salute before heading off to find her dragon.

Yes, we had been lucky in more ways than one. And thanks to that crisis, we'd been alerted to watch for the possibility of a second cometary fragment. The Ancients must've suspected the possibility, perhaps alerted to it all those Turns ago when they had scanned this planetary system on their arrival. Kenjo Fusaiyuki and his observatory… in both realities… had been key in detecting the approaching danger. Well, forewarned is fore-armed. We were on alert now to this new threat… and would deal with it when it reared its ugly head. Who knows? We might even have reason to request assistance from Elli's people to deal with it. As I headed off to see to one of my new patients, I silently told myself we'd cross that bridge when we come to it!

******- The End -******

Quantum Ergokinesis – the ability to travel to parallel universes


End file.
